An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal,
which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and
attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to
define the position with the least amount of disturbance
possible, would not be attained by divorce either. Moreover, in
the event of divorce, or even of an attempt to obtain a divorce,
it was obvious that the wife broke off all relations with the
husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in spite of the
complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he now felt
for his wife, at the bottom of his heart Alexey Alexandrovitch
still had one feeling left in regard to her--a disinclination to
see her free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime
would be to her advantage. The mere notion of this so
exasperated Alexey Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his
mind he groaned with inward agony, and got up and changed his
place in the carriage, and for a long while after, he sat with
scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and bony legs in the fleecy
rug.
"Apart from formal divorce, One might still do like Karibanov,
Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram--that is, separate from
one's wife," he went on thinking, when he had regained his
composure. But this step too presented the same drawback of
public scandal as a divorce, and what was more, a separation,
quite as much as a regular divorce, flung his wife into the arms
of Vronsky. "No, it's out of the question, out of the question!"
he said again, twisting his rug about him again. "I cannot be
unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be happy."
The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period
of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when the tooth had
been with agony extracted by his wife's words. But that feeling
had been replaced by another, the desire, not merely that she
should not be triumphant, but that she should get due punishment
for her crime. He did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the
bottom of his heart he longed for her to suffer for having
destroyed his peace of mind--his honor. And going once again
over the conditions inseparable from a duel, a divorce, a
separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexey Alexandrovitch
felt convinced that there was only one solution,--to keep her
with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and using
every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still
more--though this he did not admit to himself--to punish her.
"I must inform her of my conclusion, that thinking over the
terrible position in which she has placed her family, all other
solutions will be worse for both sides than an external _status
quo_, and that such I agree to retain, on the strict condition of
obedience on her part to my wishes, that is to say, cessation of
all intercourse with her lover." When this decision had been
finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey
Alexandrovitch in support of it. "By such a course only shall I
be acting in accordance with the dictates of religion," he told
himself. "In adopting this course, I am not casting off a
guilty wife, but giving her a chance of amendment; and, indeed,
difficult as the task will be to me, I shall devote part of my
energies to her reformation and salvation."