"I think you're giving way to pessimism. You must rouse
yourself, you must look life in the face. I know it's hard,
but..."
"I have heard it said that women love men even for their vices,"
Anna began suddenly, "but I hate him for his virtues. I can't
live with him. Do you understand? the sight of him has a
physical effect on me, it makes me beside myself. I can't, I
can't live with him. What am I to do? I have been unhappy, and
used to think one couldn't be more unhappy, but the awful state
of things I am going through now, I could never have conceived.
Would you believe it, that knowing he's a good man, a splendid
man, that I'm not worth his little finger, still I hate him. I
hate him for his generosity. And there's nothing left for me
but..."
She would have said death, but Stepan Arkadyevitch would not let
her finish.
"You are ill and overwrought," he said; "believe me, you're
exaggerating dreadfully. There's nothing so terrible in it."
And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one else in Stepan
Arkadyevitch's place, having to do with such despair, would have
ventured to smile (the smile would have seemed brutal); but in
his smile there was so much of sweetness and almost feminine
tenderness that his smile did not wound, but softened and
soothed. His gentle, soothing words and smiles were as soothing
and softening as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this.
"No, Stiva," she said, "I'm lost, lost! worse than lost! I can't
say yet that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that it's not
over. I'm an overstrained string that must snap. But it's not
ended yet...and it will have a fearful end."
"No matter, we must let the string be loosened, little by little.
There's no position from which there is no way of escape."
"I have thought, and thought. Only one..."
Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one way of escape
in her thought was death, and he would not let her say it.
"Not at all," he said. "Listen to me. You can't see your own
position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my opinion." Again
he smiled discreetly his almond-oil smile. "I'll begin from the
beginning. You married a man twenty years older than yourself.
You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It
was a mistake, let's admit."
"A fearful mistake!" said Anna.