Alexey Alexandrovitch took leave of Betsy in the drawing room,

and went to his wife. She was lying down, but hearing his steps

she sat up hastily in her former attitude, and looked in a scared

way at him. He saw she had been crying.

"I am very grateful for your confidence in me." He repeated

gently in Russian the phrase he had said in Betsy's presence in

French, and sat down beside her. When he spoke to her in

Russian, using the Russian "thou" of intimacy and affection, it

was insufferably irritating to Anna. "And I am very grateful for

your decision. I, too, imagine that since he is going away,

Advertisement..

there is no sort of necessity for Count Vronsky to come here.

However, if..."

"But I've said so already, so why repeat it?" Anna suddenly

interrupted him with an irritation she could not succeed in

repressing. "No sort of necessity," she thought, "for a man to

come and say good-bye to the woman he loves, for whom he was

ready to ruin himself, and has ruined himself, and who cannot

live without him. No sort of necessity!" she compressed her

lips, and dropped her burning eyes to his hands with their

swollen veins. They were rubbing each other.

"Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.

"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad

to see..." Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning.

"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly,

exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehand

all he would say.

"Yes," he assented; "and Princess Tverskaya's interference in the

most difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. She

especially..."

"I don't believe a word of what's said about her," said Anna

quickly. "I know she really cares for me."

Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She played

nervously with the tassel of her dressing-gown, glancing at him

with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she

blamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desire

now was to be rid of his oppressive presence.

"I have just sent for the doctor," said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"I am very well; what do I want the doctor for?"

"No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn't enough

milk."

"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway"

(Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that "anyway"),

"she's a baby, and they're killing her." She rang the bell and

ordered the baby to be brought her. "I begged to nurse her, I

wasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it."




Most Popular