Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FOUR CHAPTER 22
for both of them that Stepan Arkadyevitch’s lips began twitching nervously, while
he still gazed without speaking at Karenin’s face.
“That’s what I wanted to say to her,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, turning away.
“Yes, yes...” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, not able to answer for the tears that were
choking him.
“Yes, yes, I understand you,” he brought out at last.
“I want to know what she would like,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“I am afraid she does not understand her own position. She is not a judge,” said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, recovering himself. “She is crushed, simply crushed by your
generosity. If she were to read this letter, she would be incapable of saying anything,
she would only hang her head lower than ever.”
“Yes, but what’s to be done in that case? how explain, how find out her wishes?”
“If you will allow me to give my opinion, I think that it lies with you to point out
directly the steps you consider necessary to end the position.”
“So you consider it must be ended?” Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted him.
“But how?” he added, with a gesture of his hands before his eyes not usual with
him. “I see no possible way out of it.”
“There is some way of getting out of every position,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
standing up and becoming more cheerful. “There was a time when you thought of
breaking off.... If you are convinced now that you cannot make each other happy...”
“Happiness may be variously understood. But suppose that I agree to everything,
that I want nothing: what way is there of getting out of our position?”
“If you care to know my opinion,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with the same smile
of softening, almond-oil tenderness with which he had been talking to Anna. His
kindly smile was so winning that Alexey Alexandrovitch, feeling his own weakness
and unconsciously swayed by it, was ready to believe what Stepan Arkadyevitch
was saying.
“She will never speak out about it. But one thing is possible, one thing she might
desire,” he went on, “that is the cessation of your relations and all memories associated
with them. To my thinking, in your position what’s essential is the formation of
a new attitude to one another. And that can only rest on a basis of freedom on both
sides.”
“Divorce,” Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted, in a tone of aversion.
“Yes, I imagine that divorce–yes, divorce,” Stepan Arkadyevitch repeated, reddening.
“That is from every point of view the most rational course for married people
who find themselves in the position you are in. What can be done if married people
find that life is impossible for them together? That may always happen.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed heavily and closed his eyes.
“There’s only one point to be considered: is either of the parties desirous of forming
new ties? If not, it is very simple,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, feeling more and
more free from constraint.
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