Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 22
felt conscious of himself from the springy motions of his legs to the movements of
his lungs as he breathed, and something set his lips twitching.
Joining him, she pressed his hand tightly.
“You’re not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had to see you,” she said; and
the serious and set line of her lips, which he saw under the veil, transformed his
mood at once.
“I angry! But how have you come, where from?”
“Never mind,” she said, laying her hand on his, “come along, I must talk to you.”
He saw that something had happened, and that the interview would not be a
joyous one. In her presence he had no will of his own: without knowing the grounds
of her distress, he already felt the same distress unconsciously passing over him.
“What is it? what?” he asked her, squeezing her hand with his elbow, and trying
to read her thoughts in her face.
She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her courage; then suddenly she
stopped.
“I did not tell you yesterday,” she began, breathing quickly and painfully, “that
coming home with Alexey Alexandrovitch I told him everything...told him I could
not be his wife, that...and told him everything.”
He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure down to her as though
hoping in this way to soften the hardness of her position for her. But directly she
had said this he suddenly drew himself up, and a proud and hard expression came
over his face.
“Yes, yes, that’s better, a thousand times better! I know how painful it was,” he
said. But she was not listening to his words, she was reading his thoughts from the
expression of his face. She could not guess that that expression arose from the first
idea that presented itself to Vronsky–that a duel was now inevitable. The idea of a
duel had never crossed her mind, and so she put a different interpretation on this
passing expression of hardness.
When she got her husband’s letter, she knew then at the bottom of her heart that
everything would go on in the old way, that she would not have the strength of will
to forego her position, to abandon her son, and to join her lover. The morning spent
at Princess Tverskaya’s had confirmed her still more in this. But this interview was
still of the utmost gravity for her. She hoped that this interview would transform
her position, and save her. If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely,
passionately, without an instant’s wavering: “Throw up everything and come with
me!” she would give up her son and go away with him. But this news had not produced
what she had expected in him; he simply seemed as though he were resenting
some affront.
“It was not in the least painful to me. It happened of itself,” she said irritably;
“and see...” she pulled her husband’s letter out of her glove.
“I understand, I understand,” he interrupted her, taking the letter, but not reading
it, and trying to soothe her. “The one thing I longed for, the one thing I prayed for,
was to cut short this position, so as to devote my life to your happiness.”
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