Anna Karenina - Part 3

Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and there was

no determination in them. She saw at once that he had been

thinking about it before by himself. She knew that whatever he

might say to her, he would not say all he thought. And she knew

that her last hope had failed her. This was not what she had

been reckoning on.

"You see the sort of man he is," she said, with a shaking voice;

"he..."

"Forgive me, but I rejoice at it," Vronsky interrupted. "For

God's sake, let me finish!" he added, his eyes imploring her to

give him time to explain his words. "I rejoice, because things

cannot, cannot possibly remain as he supposes."

"Why can't they?" Anna said, restraining her tears, and obviously

attaching no sort of consequence to what he said. She felt that

her fate was sealed.

Vronsky meant that after the duel--inevitable, he thought--

things could not go on as before, but he said something

different.

"It can't go on. I hope that now you will leave him. I hope"--

he was confused, and reddened--"that you will let me arrange and

plan our life. Tomorrow..." he was beginning.

She did not let him go on.

"But my child!" she shrieked. "You see what he writes! I should

have to leave him, and I can't and won't do that."

"But, for God's sake, which is better?--leave your child, or

keep up this degrading position?"

"To whom is it degrading?"

"To all, and most of all to you."

"You say degrading...don't say that. Those words have no meaning

for me," she said in a shaking voice. She did not want him now

to say what was untrue. She had nothing left her but his love,

and she wanted to love him. "Don't you understand that from the

day I loved you everything has changed for me? For me there is

one thing, and one thing only--your love. If that's mine, I

feel so exalted, so strong, that nothing can be humiliating to

me. I am proud of my position, because...proud of being...

proud...." She could not say what she was proud of. Tears of

shame and despair choked her utterance. She stood still and

sobbed.

He felt, too, something swelling in his throat and twitching in

his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt on the point

of weeping. He could not have said exactly what it was touched

him so. He felt sorry for her, and he felt he could not help

her, and with that he knew that he was to blame for her

wretchedness, and that he had done something wrong.