Anna Karenina - Part 7

And being jealous of him, Anna was indignant against him and

found grounds for indignation in everything. For everything that

was difficult in her position she blamed him. The agonizing

condition of suspense she had passed in Moscow, the tardiness and

indecision of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her solitude--she put it all

down to him. If he had loved her he would have seen all the

bitterness of her position, and would have rescued her from it.

For her being in Moscow and not in the country, he was to blame

too. He could not live buried in the country as she would have

liked to do. He must have society, and he had put her in this

awful position, the bitterness of which he would not see. And

again, it was his fault that she was forever separated from her

son.

Even the rare moments of tenderness that came from time to time

did not soothe her; in his tenderness now she saw a shade of

complacency, of self-confidence, which had not been of old,

and which exasperated her.

It was dusk. Anna was alone, and waiting for him to come back

from a bachelor dinner. She walked up and down in his study (the

room where the noise from the street was least heard), and

thought over every detail of their yesterday's quarrel. Going

back from the well-remembered, offensive words of the quarrel to

what had been the ground of it, she arrived at last at its

origin. For a long while she could hardly believe that their

dissension had arisen from a conversation so inoffensive, of so

little moment to either. But so it actually had been. It all

arose from his laughing at the girls' high schools, declaring

they were useless, while she defended them. He had spoken

slightingly of women's education in general, and had said that

Hannah, Anna's English protegée, had not the slightest need to

know anything of physics.

This irritated Anna. She saw in this a contemptuous reference to

her occupations. And she bethought her of a phrase to pay him

back for the pain he had given her. "I don't expect you to

understand me, my feelings, as anyone who loved me might, but

simple delicacy I did expect," she said.

And he had actually flushed with vexation, and had said something

unpleasant. She could not recall her answer, but at that point,

with an unmistakable desire to wound her too, he had said: "I feel no interest in your infatuation over this girl, that's

true, because I see it's unnatural."

The cruelty with which he shattered the world she had built up

for herself so laboriously to enable her to endure her hard life,

the injustice with which he had accused her of affectation, of

artificiality, aroused her.