Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 21
you exaggerate it, I am afraid,” she said. “Her position in the world is difficult, I can
well understand.”
“In the world it is hell!” he brought out quickly, frowning darkly. “You can’t
imagine moral sufferings greater than what she went through in Petersburg in that
fortnight...and I beg you to believe it.”
“Yes, but here, so long as neither Anna...nor you miss society...”
“Society!” he said contemptuously, “how could I miss society?”
“So far–and it may be so always–you are happy and at peace. I see in Anna that she
is happy, perfectly happy, she has had time to tell me so much already,” said Darya
Alexandrovna, smiling; and involuntarily, as she said this, at the same moment a
doubt entered her mind whether Anna really were happy.
But Vronsky, it appeared, had no doubts on that score.
“Yes, yes,” he said, “I know that she has revived after all her sufferings; she is
happy. She is happy in the present. But I?... I am afraid of what is before us...I beg
your pardon, you would like to walk on?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
“Well, then, let us sit here.”
Darya Alexandrovna sat down on a garden seat in a corner of the avenue. He
stood up facing her.
“I see that she is happy,” he repeated, and the doubt whether she were happy sank
more deeply into Darya Alexandrovna’s mind. “But can it last? Whether we have
acted rightly or wrongly is another question, but the die is cast,” he said, passing
from Russian to French, “and we are bound together for life. We are united by all
the ties of love that we hold most sacred. We have a child, we may have other
children. But the law and all the conditions of our position are such that thousands
of complications arise which she does not see and does not want to see. And that one
can well understand. But I can’t help seeing them. My daughter is by law not my
daughter, but Karenin’s. I cannot bear this falsity!” he said, with a vigorous gesture
of refusal, and he looked with gloomy inquiry towards Darya Alexandrovna.
She made no answer, but simply gazed at him. He went on:
“One day a son may be born, my son, and he will be legally a Karenin; he will
not be the heir of my name nor of my property, and however happy we may be in
our home life and however many children we may have, there will be no real tie
between us. They will be Karenins. You can understand the bitterness and horror
of this position! I have tried to speak of this to Anna. It irritates her. She does not
understand, and to her I cannot speak plainly of all this. Now look at another side. I
am happy, happy in her love, but I must have occupation. I have found occupation,
and am proud of what I am doing and consider it nobler than the pursuits of my
former companions at court and in the army. And most certainly I would not change
the work I am doing for theirs. I am working here, settled in my own place, and I
am happy and contented, and we need nothing more to make us happy. I love my
work here. Ce n’est pas un pis-aller, on the contrary...”
Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his explanation he grew confused,
and she did not quite understand this digression, but she felt that having once
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