Anna Karenina - Part 3

An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal,

which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and

attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to

define the position with the least amount of disturbance

possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in

the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce,

it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the

husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the

complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt

for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch

still had one feeling left in regard to her--a disinclination to

see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime

would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so

exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his

mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his

place in the carriage, and for a long while after, he sat with

scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy

rug.

"Apart from formal divorce, One might still do like Karibanov,

Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram--that is, separate from

one's wife," he went on thinking, when he had regained his

composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of

public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation,

quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms

of Vronsky. "No, it's out of the question, out of the question!"

he said again, twisting his rug about him again. "I cannot be

unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy."

The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period

of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when the tooth had

been with agony extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling

had been replaced by another, the desire, not merely that she

should not be triumphant, but that she should get due punishment

for her crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the

bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for having

destroyed his peace of mind--his honor. And going once again

over the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a

separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexey Alexandrovitch

felt convinced that there was only one solution,--to keep her

with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and using

every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still

more--though this he did not admit to himself--to punish her.

"I must inform her of my conclusion, that thinking over the

terrible position in which she has placed her family, all other

solutions will be worse for both sides than an external _status

quo_, and that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of

obedience on her part to my wishes, that is to say, cessation of

all intercourse with her lover." When this decision had been

finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey

Alexandrovitch in support of it. "By such a course only shall I

be acting in accordance with the dictates of religion," he told

himself. "In adopting this course, I am not casting off a

guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed,

difficult as the task will be to me, I shall devote part of my

energies to her reformation and salvation."