‘Yes, but how often the happiness of an arranged marriage scatters like dust, precisely because of the appearance of that very passion which was not acknowledged,’ said Vronsky.
‘But by arranged marriages we mean those in which both have already had their wild times. It’s like scarlet fever, one has to go through it.’
‘Then we should find some artificial inoculation against love, as with smallpox.’
‘When I was young, I was in love with a beadle,’ said Princess Miagky. ‘I don’t know whether that helped me or not.’
‘No, joking aside, I think that in order to know love one must make a mistake and then correct it,’ said Princess Betsy.
‘Even after marriage,’ the ambassador’s wife said jokingly.
‘It’s never too late to repent.’ The diplomat uttered an English proverb.
‘Precisely,’ Betsy picked up, ‘one must make a mistake and then correct oneself. What do you think?’ She turned to Anna, who with a firm, barely noticeable smile on her lips was silently listening to this conversation.
‘I think,’ said Anna, toying with the glove she had taken off, ‘I think ... if there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.’
Vronsky was looking at Anna and waiting with a sinking heart for what she would say. He exhaled as if after danger when she spoke these words.
Anna suddenly turned to him:
‘And I have received a letter from Moscow. They write that Kitty Shcherbatsky is very ill.’
‘Really?’ said Vronsky, frowning.
Anna looked at him sternly.
‘That doesn’t interest you?’
‘On the contrary, very much. What exactly do they write, if I may ask?’ he said.
Anna rose and went over to Betsy.
‘Give me a cup of tea,’ she said, stopping behind her chair.
While Princess Betsy poured her tea, Vronsky came over to Anna.
‘What do they write to you?’ he repeated.
‘I often think that men don’t understand what is noble and what is ignoble, though they always talk about it,’ Anna said without answering him. ‘I’ve long wanted to tell you,’ she added and, moving a few steps away, sat down by a corner table with albums on it.
‘I don’t quite understand the meaning of your words,’ he said, handing her the cup.
She glanced at the sofa beside her, and he sat down at once.
‘Yes, I’ve wanted to tell you,’ she said without looking at him. ‘You acted badly - very, very badly.’
‘Don’t I know that I acted badly? But who was the cause of my acting so?’
‘Why do you say that to me?’ she said, glancing sternly at him.
‘You know why,’ he replied boldly and joyfully, meeting her eyes and continuing to look.
It was not he but she who became embarrassed.
‘That proves only that you have no heart,’ she said. But her eyes said that she knew he did have a heart, and because of it she was afraid of him.
‘What you were just talking about was a mistake, and not love.’
‘Remember, I forbade you to utter that word, that vile word,’ Anna said with a shudder; but she felt at once that by this one word ‘forbade’ she showed that she acknowledged having certain rights over him and was thereby encouraging him to speak of love. ‘I’ve long wanted to tell you that,’ she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and all aflame with the blush that burned her face, and tonight I came on purpose, knowing that I would meet you. I came to tell you that this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, but you make me feel guilty of something.’
He looked at her, struck by the new, spiritual beauty of her face.
‘What do you want of me?’ he said simply and seriously.
‘I want you to go to Moscow and ask Kitty’s forgiveness,’ she said, and a little light flickered in her eyes.
‘You don’t want that,’ he said.
He saw that she was saying what she forced herself to say, and not what she wanted.
‘If you love me as you say you do,’ she whispered, ‘make it so that I am at peace.’
His face lit up.
‘Don’t you know that you are my whole life? But I know no peace and cannot give you any. All of myself, my love ... yes. I cannot think of you and myself separately. You and I are one for me. And I do not see any possibility of peace ahead either for me or for you. I see the possibility of despair, of unhappiness ... or I see the possibility of happiness, such happiness! ... Isn’t it possible?’ he added with his lips only; but she heard him.
She strained all the forces of her mind to say what she ought to say; but instead she rested her eyes on him, filled with love, and made no answer.
‘There it is!’ he thought with rapture. ‘When I was already in despair, and when it seemed there would be no end - there it is! She loves me. She’s confessed it.’
‘Then do this for me, never say these words to me, and let us be good friends,’ she said in words; but her eyes were saying something quite different.
‘We won’t be friends, you know that yourself. And whether we will be the happiest or the unhappiest of people - is in your power.’
She wanted to say something, but he interrupted her.
