Anna Karenina - Part 4

"We've been talking too much," said Betsy. "I feel it's

selfishness on my part, and I am going away."

She got up, but Anna, suddenly flushing, quickly caught at her

hand.

"No, wait a minute, please. I must tell you...no, you." she

turned to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and her neck and brow were

suffused with crimson. "I won't and can't keep anything secret

from you," she said.

Alexey Alexandrovitch cracked his fingers and bowed his head.

"Betsy's been telling me that Count Vronsky wants to come here to

say good-bye before his departure for Tashkend." She did not

look at her husband, and was evidently in haste to have

everything out, however hard it might be for her. "I told her I

could not receive him."

"You said, my dear, that it would depend on Alexey

Alexandrovitch," Betsy corrected her.

"Oh, no, I can't receive him; and what object would there...."

She stopped suddenly, and glanced inquiringly at her husband (he

did not look at her). "In short, I don't wish it...."

Alexey Alexandrovitch advanced and would have taken her hand.

Her first impulse was to jerk back her hand from the damp hand

with big swollen veins that sought hers, but with an obvious

effort to control herself she pressed his hand.

"I am very grateful to you for your confidence, but..." he said,

feeling with confusion and annoyance that what he could decide

easily and clearly by himself, he could not discuss before

Princess Tverskaya, who to him stood for the incarnation of that

brute force which would inevitably control him in the life he led

in the eyes of the world, and hinder him from giving way to his

feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped short, looking at

Princess Tverskaya.

"Well, good-bye, my darling," said Betsy, getting up. She kissed

Anna, and went out. Alexey Alexandrovitch escorted her out.

"Alexey Alexandrovitch! I know you are a truly magnanimous man,"

said Betsy, stopping in the little drawing-room, and with special

warmth shaking hands with him once more. "I am an outsider, but

I so love her and respect you that I venture to advise. Receive

him. Alexey Vronsky is the soul of honor, and he is going away

to Tashkend."

"Thank you, princess, for your sympathy and advice. But the

question of whether my wife can or cannot see anyone she must

decide herself."

He said this from habit, lifting his brows with dignity, and

reflected immediately that whatever his words might be, there

could be no dignity in his position. And he saw this by the

suppressed, malicious, and ironical smile with which Betsy

glanced at him after this phrase.