Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 15
Chapter 15
THOUGH Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted Vronsky when
he told her their position was impossible, at the bottom of her heart she regarded
her own position as false and dishonorable, and she longed with her whole soul to
change it. On the way home from the races she had told her husband the truth in a
moment of excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she
was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she was glad,
that now everything was made clear, and at least there would be no more lying and
deception. It seemed to her beyond doubt that her position was now made clear
forever. It might be bad, this new position, but it would be clear; there would be
no indefiniteness or falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself and her
husband in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being made
clear, she thought. That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did not tell him of what
had passed between her and her husband, though, to make the position definite, it
was necessary to tell him.
When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her mind was what
she had said to her husband, and those words seemed to her so awful that she could
not conceive now how she could have brought herself to utter those strange, coarse
words, and could not imagine what would come of it. But the words were spoken,
and Alexey Alexandrovitch had gone away without saying anything. “I saw Vronsky
and did not tell him. At the very instant he was going away I would have turned
him back and told him, but I changed my mind, because it was strange that I had
not told him the first minute. Why was it I wanted to tell him and did not tell him?”
And in answer to this question a burning blush of shame spread over her face. She
knew what had kept her from it, she knew that she had been ashamed. Her position,
which had seemed to her simplified the night before, suddenly struck her now as
not only not simple, but as absolutely hopeless. She felt terrified at the disgrace, of
which she had not ever thought before. Directly she thought of what her husband
would do, the most terrible ideas came to her mind. She had a vision of being turned
out of the house, of her shame being proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself
where she should go when she was turned out of the house, and she could not find
an answer.
When she thought of Vronsky, it seemed to her that he did not love her, that he
was already beginning to be tired of her, that she could not offer herself to him, and
she felt bitter against him for it. It seemed to her that the words that she had spoken
to her husband, and had continually repeated in her imagination, she had said to
everyone, and everyone had heard them. She could not bring herself to look those
of her own household in the face. She could not bring herself to call her maid, and
still less go downstairs and see her son and his governess.
The maid, who had been listening at her door for a long while, came into her room
of her own accord. Anna glanced inquiringly into her face, and blushed with a scared
look. The maid begged her pardon for coming in, saying that she had fancied the bell
rang. She brought her clothes and a note. The note was from Betsy. Betsy reminded
her that Liza Merkalova and Baroness Shtoltz were coming to play croquet with her
that morning with their adorers, Kaluzhsky and old Stremov. “Come, if only as a
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