Before Vronsky's departure for the elections, Anna had reflected

that the scenes constantly repeated between them each time he

left home, might only make him cold to her instead of attaching

him to her, and resolved to do all she could to control herself

so as to bear the parting with composure. But the cold, severe

glance with which he had looked at her when he came to tell her

he was going had wounded her, and before he had started her peace

of mind was destroyed.

In solitude afterwards, thinking over that glance which had

expressed his right to freedom, she came, as she always did, to

the same point--the sense of her own humiliation. "He has the

right to go away when and where he chooses. Not simply to go

away, but to leave me. He has every right, and I have none.

But knowing that, he ought not to do it. What has he done,

though?... He looked at me with a cold, severe expression. Of

course that is something indefinable, impalpable, but it has

never been so before, and that glance means a great deal," she

thought. "That glance shows the beginning of indifference."

And though she felt sure that a coldness was beginning, there was

nothing she could do, she could not in any way alter her

relations to him. Just as before, only by love and by charm

could she keep him. And so, just as before, only by occupation

in the day, by morphine at night, could she stifle the fearful

thought of what would be if he ceased to love her. It is true

there was still one means; not to keep him--for that she wanted

nothing more than his love--but to be nearer to him, to be in

such a position that he would not leave her. That means was

divorce and marriage. And she began to long for that, and made

up her mind to agree to it the first time he or Stiva approached

her on the subject.

Absorbed in such thoughts, she passed five days without him, the

five days that he was to be at the elections.

Walks, conversation with Princess Varvara, visits to the

hospital, and, most of all, reading--reading of one book after

another--filled up her time. But on the sixth day, when the

coachman came back without him, she felt that now she was utterly

incapable of stifling the thought of him and of what he was doing

there, just at that time her little girl was taken ill. Anna

began to look after her, but even that did not distract her mind,

especially as the illness was not serious. However hard she

tried, she could not love this little child, and to feign love

was beyond her powers. Towards the evening of that day, still

alone, Anna was in such a panic about him that she decided to

start for the town, but on second thoughts wrote him the

contradictory letter that Vronsky received, and without reading

it through, sent it off by a special messenger. The next morning

she received his letter and regretted her own. She dreaded a

repetition of the severe look he had flung at her at parting,

especially when he knew that the baby was not dangerously ill.

But still she was glad she had written to him. At this moment

Anna was positively admitting to herself that she was a burden to

him, that he would relinquish his freedom regretfully to return

to her, and in spite of that she was glad he was coming. Let him

weary of her, but he would be here with her, so that she would

see him, would know of every action he took.




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