"Yes, yes, that's better, a thousand times better! I know how

painful it was," he said. But she was not listening to his

words, she was reading his thoughts from the expression of his

face. She could not guess that that expression arose from the

first idea that presented itself to Vronsky--that a duel was now

inevitable. The idea of a duel had never crossed her mind, and

so she put a different interpretation on this passing expression

of hardness.

When she got her husband's letter, she knew then at the bottom of

her heart that everything would go on in the old way, that she

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would not have the strength of will to forego her position, to

abandon her son, and to join her lover. The morning spent at

Princess Tverskaya's had confirmed her still more in this. But

this interview was still of the utmost gravity for her. She

hoped that this interview would transform her position, and save

her. If on hearing this news he were to say to her resolutely,

passionately, without an instant's wavering: "Throw up everything

and come with me!" she would give up her son and go away with

him. But this news had not produced what she had expected in

him; he simply seemed as though he were resenting some affront.

"It was not in the least painful to me. It happened of itself,"

she said irritably; "and see..." she pulled her husband's letter

out of her glove.

"I understand, I understand," he interrupted her, taking the

letter, but not reading it, and trying to soothe her. "The one

thing I longed for, the one thing I prayed for, was to cut

short this position, so as to devote my life to your happiness."

"Why do you tell me that?" she said. "Do you suppose I can doubt

it? If I doubted..."

"Who's that coming?" said Vronsky suddenly, pointing to two

ladies walking towards them. "Perhaps they know us!" and he

hurriedly turned off, drawing her after him into a side path.

"Oh, I don't care!" she said. Her lips were quivering. And he

fancied that her eyes looked with strange fury at him from under

the veil. "I tell you that's not the point--I can't doubt that;

but see what he writes to me. Read it." She stood still again.

Again, just as at the first moment of hearing of her rupture with

her husband, Vronsky, on reading the letter, was unconsciously

carried away by the natural sensation aroused in him by his own

relation to the betrayed husband. Now while he held his letter

in his hands, he could not help picturing the challenge, which he

would most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel

itself, in which, with the same cold and haughty expression that

his face was assuming at this moment he would await the injured

husband's shot, after having himself fired into the air. And at

that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what

Serpuhovskoy had just said to him, and what he had himself been

thinking in the morning--that it was better not to bind himself

--and he knew that this thought he could not tell her.




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