‘What’s to be done, then, in your opinion?’ she asked, with the same light mockery. She, who had so feared he might take her pregnancy lightly, was now vexed that he had drawn from it the necessity for doing something.
‘Tell him everything and leave him.’
‘Very well, suppose I do that,’ she said. ‘Do you know what will come of it? I’ll tell you everything beforehand.’ And a wicked light lit up in her eyes, which a moment before had been tender. ‘ “Ah, madam, so you love another man and have entered into a criminal liaison with him?”’ (Impersonating her husband, she stressed the word ‘criminal’, just as Alexei Alexandrovich would have done.) “‘I warned you about the consequences in their religious, civil and familial aspects. You did not listen to me. Now I cannot lend my name to disgrace ...”’ - ‘nor my son’s,’ she was going to say, but she could not joke about her son - ’ “lend my name to disgrace,” and more of the same,’ she added. ‘Generally, he will say in his statesmanly manner, and with clarity and precision, that he cannot release me but will take what measures are in his power to prevent a scandal. And he will do, calmly and accurately, what he says. That’s what will happen. He’s not a man, he’s a machine, and a wicked machine when he gets angry,’ she added, recalling Alexei Alexandrovich in all the details of his figure, manner of speaking and character, holding him guilty for everything bad she could find in him and forgiving him nothing, on account of the terrible fault for which she stood guilty before him.
‘But, Anna,’ Vronsky said in a soft, persuasive voice, trying to calm her down, ‘all the same it’s necessary to tell him, and then be guided by what he does.’
‘What, run away?’
‘Why not run away? I see no possibility of this continuing. And not on my account - I see you’re suffering.’
‘Yes, run away, and I’ll become your mistress?’ she said spitefully.
‘Anna!’ he said, with reproachful tenderness.
‘Yes,’ she went on, ‘I’ll become your mistress and ruin ... everything.’
Again she was going to say ‘my son’, but could not utter the word.
Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong, honest nature, could endure this situation of deceit and not wish to get out of it; but he did not suspect that the main reason for it was that word ‘son’ which she could not utter. When she thought of her son and his future attitude towards the mother who had abandoned his father, she felt so frightened at what she had done that she did not reason, but, like a woman, tried only to calm herself with false reasonings and words, so that everything would remain as before and she could forget the terrible question of what would happen with her son.29
‘I beg you, I implore you,’ she said suddenly in a completely different, sincere and tender tone, taking his hand, ‘never speak to me of that!’
‘But, Anna ...’
‘Never. Leave it to me. I know all the meanness, all the horror of my situation; but it’s not as easy to resolve as you think. Leave it to me and listen to me. Never speak of that to me. Do you promise me? ... No, no, promise! ...’
‘I promise everything, but I can’t be at peace, especially after what you’ve said. I can’t be at peace when you are not at peace ...’
‘I?’ she repeated. ‘Yes, I’m tormented sometimes; but it will go away if you never speak to me of that. It’s only when you speak of it that it torments me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she interrupted him, ‘how hard it is for your honest nature to lie, and I’m sorry for you. I often think how you ruined your life for me.’
‘I was thinking the same thing just now,’ he said. ‘How could you have sacrificed everything for me? I can’t forgive myself that you are unhappy.’
‘I’m unhappy?’ she said, coming close to him and looking at him with a rapturous smile of love. ‘I’m like a starving man who has been given food. Maybe he’s cold, and his clothes are torn, and he’s ashamed, but he’s not unhappy. I’m unhappy? No, this is my happiness ...’
She heard the voice of her returning son and, casting a quick glance around the terrace, rose impetuously. Her eyes lit up with a fire familiar to him, she raised her beautiful, ring-covered hands with a quick gesture, took his head, gave him a long look and, bringing her face closer, quickly kissed his mouth and both eyes with her open, smiling lips and pushed him away. She wanted to go, but he held her back.
‘When?’ he said in a whisper, looking at her rapturously.
‘Tonight, at one,’ she whispered and, after a deep sigh, walked with her light, quick step to meet her son.
The rain had caught Seryozha in the big garden, and he and the nanny had sat it out in the gazebo.
‘Well, good-bye,’ she said to Vronsky. ‘We must be going to the races soon now. Betsy has promised to come for me.’
Vronsky looked at his watch and left hastily.
XXIV
