Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 23
out her things, expecting he would come to her. But an hour passed; he did not come.
She went into the dining room on the pretext of giving some directions, and spoke
loudly on purpose, expecting him to come out there; but he did not come, though
she heard him go to the door of his study as he parted from the chief secretary. She
knew that he usually went out quickly to his office, and she wanted to see him before
that, so that their attitude to one another might be defined.
She walked across the drawing room and went resolutely to him. When she went
into his study he was in official uniform, obviously ready to go out, sitting at a little
table on which he rested his elbows, looking dejectedly before him. She saw him
before he saw her, and she saw that he was thinking of her.
On seeing her, he would have risen, but changed his mind, then his face flushed
hotly–a thing Anna had never seen before, and he got up quickly and went to meet
her, looking not at her eyes, but above them at her forehead and hair. He went up to
her, took her by the hand, and asked her to sit down.
“I am very glad you have come,” he said, sitting down beside her, and obviously
wishing to say something, he stuttered. Several times he tried to begin to speak, but
stopped. In spite of the fact that, preparing herself for meeting him, she had schooled
herself to despise and reproach him, she did not know what to say to him, and she
felt sorry for him. And so the silence lasted for some time. “Is Seryozha quite well?”
he said, and not waiting for an answer, he added: “I shan’t be dining at home today,
and I have got to go out directly.”
“I had thought of going to Moscow,” she said.
“No, you did quite, quite right to come,” he said, and was silent again.
Seeing that he was powerless to begin the conversation, she began herself.
“Alexey Alexandrovitch,” she said, looking at him and not dropping her eyes under
his persistent gaze at her hair, “I’m a guilty woman, I’m a bad woman, but I am
the same as I was, as I told you then, and I have come to tell you that I can change
nothing.”
“I have asked you no question about that,” he said, all at once, resolutely and with
hatred looking her straight in the face; “that was as I had supposed.” Under the
influence of anger he apparently regained complete possession of all his faculties.
“But as I told you then, and have written to you,” he said in a thin, shrill voice, “I
repeat now, that I am not bound to know this. I ignore it. Not all wives are so kind as
you, to be in such a hurry to communicate such agreeable news to their husbands.”
He laid special emphasis on the word “agreeable.” “I shall ignore it so long as the
world knows nothing of it, so long as my name is not disgraced. And so I simply
inform you that our relations must be just as they have always been, and that only
in the event of your compromising me I shall be obliged to take steps to secure my
honor.”
“But our relations cannot be the same as always,” Anna began in a timid voice,
looking at him with dismay.
When she saw once more those composed gestures, heard that shrill, childish, and
sarcastic voice, her aversion for him extinguished her pity for him, and she felt only
afraid, but at all costs she wanted to make clear her position.
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