Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 4
“I do not enter into the details of why a woman wants to see her lover.”
“I meant, I only...” she said, flushing hotly. This coarseness of his angered her, and
gave her courage. “Surely you must feel how easy it is for you to insult me?” she
said.
“An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he’s a
thief is simply la constatation d’un fait.”
“This cruelty is something new I did not know in you.”
“You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty, giving her the honorable
protection of his name, simply on the condition of observing the proprieties: is that
cruelty?”
“It’s worse than cruel–it’s base, if you want to know!” Anna cried, in a rush of
hatred, and getting up, she was going away.
“No!” he shrieked, in his shrill voice, which pitched a note higher than usual even,
and his big hands clutching her by the arm so violently that red marks were left from
the bracelet he was squeezing, he forcibly sat her down in her place.
“Base! If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake husband and child
for a lover, while you eat your husband’s bread!”
She bowed her head. She did not say what she had said the evening before to her
lover, that he was her husband, and her husband was superfluous; she did not even
think that. She felt all the justice of his words, and only said softly:
“You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be myself; but what are
you saying all this for?”
“What am I saying it for? what for?” he went on, as angrily. “That you may
know that since you have not carried out my wishes in regard to observing outward
decorum, I will take measures to put an end to this state of things.”
“Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway,” she said; and again, at the thought of death
near at hand and now desired, tears came into her eyes.
“It will end sooner than you and your lover have planned! If you must have the
satisfaction of animal passion...”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch! I won’t say it’s not generous, but it’s not like a gentleman
to strike anyone who’s down.”
“Yes, you only think of yourself! But the sufferings of a man who was your husband
have no interest for you. You don’t care that his whole life is ruined, that he is
thuff...thuff...”
Alexey Alexandrovitch was speaking so quickly that he stammered, and was utterly
unable to articulate the word “suffering.” In the end he pronounced it “thuffering.”
She wanted to laugh, and was immediately ashamed that anything could
amuse her at such a moment. And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for him,
put herself in his place, and was sorry for him. But what could she say or do? Her
head sank, and she sat silent. He too was silent for some time, and then began
speaking in a frigid, less shrill voice, emphasizing random words that had no special
significance.
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