Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 9
Alexey Alexandrovitch shivered, and bent his hands to make the joints crack.
“Oh, please, don’t do that, I do so dislike it,” she said.
“Anna, is this you?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, quietly making an effort over
himself, and restraining the motion of his fingers.
“But what is it all about?” she said, with such genuine and droll wonder. “What
do you want of me?”
Alexey Alexandrovitch paused, and rubbed his forehead and his eyes. He saw
that instead of doing as he had intended–that is to say, warning his wife against a
mistake in the eyes of the world–he had unconsciously become agitated over what
was the affair of her conscience, and was struggling against the barrier he fancied
between them.
“This is what I meant to say to you,” he went on coldly and composedly, “and I
beg you to listen to it. I consider jealousy, as you know, a humiliating and degrading
feeling, and I shall never allow myself to be influenced by it; but there are certain
rules of decorum which cannot be disregarded with impunity. This evening it was
not I observed it, but judging by the impression made on the company, everyone
observed that your conduct and deportment were not altogether what could be desired.”
“I positively don’t understand,” said Anna, shrugging her shoulders–”He doesn’t
care,” she thought. “But other people noticed it, and that’s what upsets him.“–
”You’re not well, Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she added, and she got up, and would
have gone towards the door; but he moved forward as though he would stop her.
His face was ugly and forbidding, as Anna had never seen him. She stopped, and
bending her head back and on one side, began with her rapid hand taking out her
hairpins.
“Well, I’m listening to what’s to come,” she said, calmly and ironically; “and indeed
I listen with interest, for I should like to understand what’s the matter.”
She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm, and natural tone in which she was
speaking, and the choice of the words she used.
“To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no right, and besides, I regard
that as useless and even harmful,” began Alexey Alexandrovitch. “Ferreting in one’s
soul, one often ferrets out something that might have lain there unnoticed. Your
feelings are an affair of your own conscience; but I am in duty bound to you, to
myself, and to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been joined, not
by man, but by God. That union can only be severed by a crime, and a crime of that
nature brings its own chastisement.”
“I don’t understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I am, unluckily,” she said,
rapidly passing her hand through her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins.
“Anna, for God’s sake don’t speak like that!” he said gently. “Perhaps I am mistaken,
but believe me, what I say, I say as much for myself as for you. I am your
husband, and I love you.”
For an instant her face fell, and the mocking gleam in her eyes died away; but
the word love threw her into revolt again. She thought: “Love? Can he love? If he
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