Alexey Alexandrovitch had seen nothing striking or improper in

the fact that his wife was sitting with Vronsky at a table apart,

in eager conversation with him about something. But he noticed

that to the rest of the party this appeared something striking

and improper, and for that reason it seemed to him too to be

improper. He made up his mind that he must speak of it to his

wife.

On reaching home Alexey Alexandrovitch went to his study, as he

usually did, seated himself in his low chair, opened a book on

the Papacy at the place where he had laid the paper-knife in it,

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and read till one o'clock, just as he usually did. But from time

to time he rubbed his high forehead and shook his head, as

though to drive away something. At his usual time he got up and

made his toilet for the night. Anna Arkadyevna had not yet come

in. With a book under his arm he went upstairs. But this

evening, instead of his usual thoughts and meditations upon

official details, his thoughts were absorbed by his wife and

something disagreeable connected with her. Contrary to his usual

habit, he did not get into bed, but fell to walking up and down

the rooms with his hands clasped behind his back. He could not

go to bed, feeling that it was absolutely needful for him first

to think thoroughly over the position that had just arisen.

When Alexey Alexandrovitch had made up his mind that he must talk

to his wife about it, it had seemed a very easy and simple

matter. But now, when he began to think over the question that

had just presented itself, it seemed to him very complicated and

difficult.

Alexey Alexandrovitch was not jealous. Jealousy according to

his notions was an insult to one's wife, and one ought to have

confidence in one's wife. Why one ought to have confidence--

that is to say, complete conviction that his young wife would

always love him--he did not ask himself. But he had no

experience of lack of confidence, because he had confidence in

her, and told himself that he ought to have it. Now, though his

conviction that jealousy was a shameful feeling and that one

ought to feel confidence, had not broken down, he felt that he

was standing face to face with something illogical and

irrational, and did not know what was to be done. Alexey

Alexandrovitch was standing face to face with life, with the

possibility of his wife's loving someone other than himself, and

this seemed to him very irrational and incomprehensible because

it was life itself. All his life Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived

and worked in official spheres, having to do with the reflection

of life. And every time he had stumbled against life itself he

had shrunk away from it. Now he experienced a feeling akin to

that of a man who, while calmly crossing a precipice by a bridge,

should suddenly discover that the bridge is broken, and that

there is a chasm below. That chasm was life itself, the bridge

that artificial life in which Alexey Alexandrovitch had lived.

For the first time the question presented itself to him of the

possibility of his wife's loving someone else, and he was

horrified at it.




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