Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 13
he had regained his composure. But this step too presented the same drawback
of public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a
regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. “No, it’s out of the question,
out of the question!” he said again, twisting his rug about him again. “I cannot be
unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy.”
The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period of uncertainty,
had passed away at the instant when the tooth had been with agony extracted by his
wife’s words. But that feeling had been replaced by another, the desire, not merely
that she should not be triumphant, but that she should get due punishment for her
crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the bottom of his heart he longed
for her to suffer for having destroyed his peace of mind–his honor. And going once
again over the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a separation, and once
again rejecting them, Alexey Alexandrovitch felt convinced that there was only one
solution,–to keep her with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and
using every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still more–though
this he did not admit to himself–to punish her. “I must inform her of my conclusion,
that thinking over the terrible position in which she has placed her family, all other
solutions will be worse for both sides than an external status quo, and that such I
agree to retain, on the strict condition of obedience on her part to my wishes, that
is to say, cessation of all intercourse with her lover.” When this decision had been
finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey Alexandrovitch
in support of it. “By such a course only shall I be acting in accordance with the
dictates of religion,” he told himself. “In adopting this course, I am not casting off a
guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed, difficult as the task
will be to me, I shall devote part of my energies to her reformation and salvation.”
Though Alexey Alexandrovitch was perfectly aware that he could not exert any
moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt at reformation could lead to nothing
but falsity; though in passing through these difficult moments he had not once
thought of seeking guidance in religion, yet now, when his conclusion corresponded,
as it seemed to him, with the requirements of religion, this religious sanction to his
decision gave him complete satisfaction, and to some extent restored his peace of
mind. He was pleased to think that, even in such an important crisis in life, no one
would be able to say that he had not acted in accordance with the principles of that
religion whose banner he had always held aloft amid the general coolness and indifference.
As he pondered over subsequent developments, Alexey Alexandrovitch
did not see, indeed, why his relations with his wife should not remain practically
the same as before. No doubt, she could never regain his esteem, but there was not,
and there could not be, any sort of reason that his existence should be troubled, and
that he should suffer because she was a bad and faithless wife. “Yes, time will pass;
time, which arranges all things, and the old relations will be reestablished,” Alexey
Alexandrovitch told himself; “so far reestablished, that is, that I shall not be sensible
of a break in the continuity of my life. She is bound to be unhappy, but I am not to
blame, and so I cannot be unhappy.”
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