Anna Karenina - Part 3

"I had thought of going to Moscow," she said.

"No, you did quite, quite right to come," he said, and was silent

again.

Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began

herself.

"Alexey Alexandrovitch," she said, looking at him and not

dropping her eyes under his persistent gaze at her hair, "I'm a

guilty woman, I'm a bad woman, but I am the same as I was, as I

told you then, and I have come to tell you that I can change

nothing."

"I have asked you no question about that," he said, all at once,

resolutely and with hatred looking her straight in the face;

"that was as I had supposed." Under the influence of anger he

apparently regained complete possession of all his faculties.

"But as I told you then, and have written to you," he said in a

thin, shrill voice, "I repeat now, that I am not bound to know

this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as you, to be in

such a hurry to communicate such agreeable news to their

husbands." He laid special emphasis on the word "agreeable." "I

shall ignore it so long as the world knows nothing of it, so long

as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply inform you that

our relations must be just as they have always been, and that

only in the event of your compromising me I shall be obliged to

take steps to secure my honor."

"But our relations cannot be the same as always," Anna began in a

timid voice, looking at him with dismay.

When she saw once more those composed gestures, heard that

shrill, childish, and sarcastic voice, her aversion for him

extinguished her pity for him, and she felt only afraid, but at

all costs she wanted to make clear her position.

"I cannot be your wife while I..." she began.

He laughed a cold and malignant laugh.

"The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in

your ideas. I have too much respect or contempt, or both...I

respect your past and despise your present...that I was far from

the interpretation you put on my words."

Anna sighed and bowed her head.

"Though indeed I fail to comprehend how, with the independence

you show," he went on, getting hot, "--announcing your infidelity

to your husband and seeing nothing reprehensible in it,

apparently--you can see anything reprehensible in performing a

wife's duties in relation to your husband."