Part Four: Chapter 20

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch took leave of Betsy in the drawing room,and went to his wife. She was lying down, but hearing his stepsshe sat up hastily in her former attitude, and looked in a scaredway at him. He saw she had been crying.

　　"I am very grateful for your confidence in me." He repeatedgently in Russian the phrase he had said in Betsy's presence inFrench, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her inRussian, using the Russian "thou" of intimacy and affection, itwas insufferably irritating to Anna. "And I am very grateful foryour decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away,there is no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come here.However, if..."

　　"But I've said so already, so why repeat it?" Anna suddenlyinterrupted him with an irritation she could not succeed inrepressing. "No sort of necessity," she thought, "for a man tocome and say good-bye to the woman he loves, for whom he wasready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannotlive without him. No sort of necessity!" she compressed herlips, and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with theirswollen veins. They were rubbing each other.

　　"Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.

　　"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very gladto see..." Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning.

　　"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly,exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehandall he would say.

　　"Yes," he assented; "and Princess Tverskaya's interference in themost difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. Sheespecially..."

　　"I don't believe a word of what's said about her," said Annaquickly. "I know she really cares for me."

　　Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She playednervously with the tassel of her dressing-gown, glancing at himwith that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which sheblamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desirenow was to be rid of his oppressive presence.

　　"I have just sent for the doctor," said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

　　"I am very well; what do I want the doctor for?"

　　"No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn't enoughmilk."

　　"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway"(Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that "anyway"),"she's a baby, and they're killing her." She rang the bell andordered the baby to be brought her. "I begged to nurse her, Iwasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it."

　　"I don't blame..."

　　"Yes, you do blame me! My God! why didn't I die!" And she brokeinto sobs. "Forgive me, I'm nervous, I'm unjust," she said,controlling herself, "but do go away..."

　　"No, it can't go on like this," Alexey Alexandrovitch said tohimself decidedly as he left his wife's room.

　　Never had the impossibility of his position in the world's eyes,and his wife's hatred of him, and altogether the might of thatmysterious brutal force that guided his life against hisspiritual inclinations, and exacted conformity with its decreesand change in his attitude to his wife, been presented to himwith such distinctness as that day. He saw clearly that all theworld and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly,he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soula feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of allthe good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herselfit would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; butif they all thought this out of the question, he was even readyto allow these relations to be renewed, so long as the childrenwere not disgraced, and he was not deprived of them nor forced tochange his position. Bad as this might be, it was anyway betterthan a rupture, which would put her in a hopeless and shamefulposition, and deprive him of everything he cared for. But hefelt helpless; he knew beforehand that every one was against him,and that he would not be allowed to do what seemed to him now sonatural and right, but would be forced to do what was wrong,though it seemed the proper thing to them.