Vronsky had several times already, though not so resolutely as

now, tried to bring her to consider their position, and every

time he had been confronted by the same superficiality and

triviality with which she met his appeal now. It was as though

there were something in this which she could not or would not

face, as though directly she began to speak of this, she, the

real Anna, retreated somehow into herself, and another strange

and unaccountable woman came out, whom he did not love, and whom

he feared, and who was in opposition to him. But today he was

resolved to have it out.

"Whether he knows or not," said Vronsky, in his usual quiet and

resolute tone, "that's nothing to do with us. We cannot...you

cannot stay like this, especially now."

"What's to be done, according to you?" she asked with the same

frivolous irony. She who had so feared he would take her

condition too lightly was now vexed with him for deducing from it

the necessity of taking some step.

"Tell him everything, and leave him."

"Very well, let us suppose I do that," she said. "Do you know

what the result of that would be? I can tell you it all

beforehand," and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that had

been so soft a minute before. "'Eh, you love another man, and

have entered into criminal intrigues with him?'" (Mimicking her

husband, she threw an emphasis on the word "criminal," as Alexey

Alexandrovitch did.) "'I warned you of the results in the

religious, the civil, and the domestic relation. You have not

listened to me. Now I cannot let you disgrace my name,--'"

"and my son," she had meant to say, but about her son she could

not jest,--"'disgrace my name, and'--and more in the same

style," she added. "In general terms, he'll say in his official

manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he cannot

let me go, but will take all measures in his power to prevent

scandal. And he will calmly and punctually act in accordance

with his words. That's what will happen. He's not a man, but a

machine, and a spiteful machine when he's angry," she added,

recalling Alexey Alexandrovitch as she spoke, with all the

peculiarities of his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning

against him every defect she could find in him, softening nothing

for the great wrong she herself was doing him.




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