‘You say “humiliating” ... don’t say it. Such words have no meaning for me,’ she said in a trembling voice. She did not want him to say what was not true now. All she had left was his love, and she wanted to love him. ‘You understand that from the day I loved you everything was changed for me. For me there is one thing only - your love. If it is mine, I feel myself so high, so firm, that nothing can be humiliating for me. I’m proud of my position, because ... proud of ... proud ...’ She did not finish saying what she was proud of. Tears of shame and despair stifled her voice. She stopped and burst into sobs.
He also felt something rising in his throat, tickling in his nose, and for the first time in his life he felt himself ready to cry. He could not have said precisely what moved him so; he pitied her, and he felt that he could not help her, and at the same time he knew that he was to blame for her unhappiness, that he had done something bad.
‘Is divorce impossible?’ he said weakly. She shook her head without replying. ‘Can’t you take your son and leave him anyway?’
‘Yes, but it all depends on him. Now I must go to him,’ she said drily. Her feeling that everything would remain as before had not deceived her.
‘I’ll be in Petersburg on Tuesday, and everything will be decided.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But let’s not talk about it any more.’
Anna’s carriage, which she had sent away and told to come to the gate of Vrede’s garden, drove up. She took leave of him and went home.
XXIII
On Monday there was the usual meeting of the commission of June 2nd. Alexei Alexandrovich entered the meeting room, greeted the members and the chairman as usual, and took his seat, placing his hand on the papers prepared before him. Among these papers were the references he needed and the outline of the statement he intended to make. However, he did not need any references. He remembered everything and found it unnecessary to go over in his memory what he planned to say. He knew that when the time came and he saw the face of his adversary before him, vainly trying to assume an indifferent expression, his speech would flow of itself better than he could now prepare it. He felt that the content of his speech was so great that every word would be significant. Meanwhile, listening to the usual report, he had a most innocent, inoffensive look. No one, looking at his white hands with their swollen veins, their long fingers so tenderly touching both edges of the sheet of white paper lying before him, and his head bent to one side with its expression of fatigue, would have thought that from his mouth there would presently pour words that would cause a terrible storm, would make the members shout, interrupting each other, and the chairman call for order. When the report was over, Alexei Alexandrovich announced in his quiet, thin voice that he was going to give some of his reflections on the subject of the settlement of racial minorities. All attention turned to him. He cleared his throat and, without looking at his adversary, but choosing, as he always did when making a speech, the first person sitting in front of him - a mild little old man, who never expressed any opinion in the commission - began to expound his considerations. When it came to the fundamental and organic law, the adversary jumped up and began to object. Stremov, also a member of the commission and also cut to the quick, began to justify himself - and the meeting generally became stormy; but Alexei Alexandrovich triumphed, and his proposal was accepted; three new commissions were appointed, and the next day in a certain Petersburg circle there was no other talk than of this meeting. Alexei Alexandrovich’s success was even greater than he had expected.
The next morning, Tuesday, on waking up, he recalled with pleasure the previous day’s victory and could not help smiling, though he wished to look indifferent when the office manager, wishing to flatter him, told him about the rumours that had reached him concerning what had happened in the commission.
Busy with the office manager, Alexei Alexandrovich completely forgot that it was Tuesday, the day he had appointed for Anna Arkadyevna’s arrival, and was unpleasantly surprised when a servant came to announce her arrival to him.
