Anna Karenina - Part 7

"Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty

party," observed Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"Oh, no, oh, no, not at all! please understand me," said Stepan

Arkadyevitch, touching his hand again, as though feeling sure

this physical contact would soften his brother-in-law. "All I

say is this: her position is intolerable, and it might be

alleviated by you, and you will lose nothing by it. I will

arrange it all for you, so that you'll not notice it. You did

promise it, you know."

"The promise was given before. And I had supposed that the

question of my son had settled the matter. Besides, I had hoped

that Anna Arkadyevna had enough generosity..." Alexey

Alexandrovitch articulated with difficulty, his lips twitching

and his face white.

"She leaves it all to your generosity. She begs, she implores

one thing of you--to extricate her from the impossible position

in which she is placed. She does not ask for her son now.

Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are a good man. Put yourself in her

position for a minute. The question of divorce for her in her

position is a question of life and death. If you had not

promised it once, she would have reconciled herself to her

position, she would have gone on living in the country. But you

promised it, and she wrote to you, and moved to Moscow. And here

she's been for six months in Moscow, where every chance meeting

cuts her to the heart, every day expecting an answer. Why, it's

like keeping a condemned criminal for six months with the rope

round his neck, promising him perhaps death, perhaps mercy. Have

pity on her, and I will undertake to arrange everything. _Vos

scrupules_..."

"I am not talking about that, about that..." Alexey

Alexandrovitch interrupted with disgust. "But, perhaps, I

promised what I had no right to promise."

"So you go back from your promise?"

"I have never refused to do all that is possible, but I want time

to consider how much of what I promised is possible."

"No, Alexey Alexandrovitch!" cried Oblonsky, jumping up, "I won't

believe that! She's unhappy as only an unhappy woman can be, and

you cannot refuse in such..."

"As much of what I promised as is possible. _Vous professez

d'être libre penseur._ But I as a believer cannot, in a matter of

such gravity, act in opposition to the Christian law."

"But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I'm aware,

divorce is allowed," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Divorce is

sanctioned even by our church. And we see..."