His wound had healed, and he was driving about making

preparations for his departure for Tashkend.

"To see her once and then to bury myself, to die," he thought,

and as he was paying farewell visits, he uttered this thought to

Betsy. Charged with this commission, Betsy had gone to Anna, and

brought him back a negative reply.

"So much the better," thought Vronsky, when he received the news.

"It was a weakness, which would have shattered what strength I

have left."

Next day Betsy herself came to him in the morning, and announced

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that she had heard through Oblonsky as a positive fact that

Alexey Alexandrovitch had agreed to a divorce, and that therefore

Vronsky could see Anna.

Without even troubling himself to see Betsy out of his flat,

forgetting all his resolutions, without asking when he could see

her, where her husband was, Vronsky drove straight to the

Karenins'. He ran up the stairs seeing no one and nothing, and

with a rapid step, almost breaking into a run, he went into her

room. And without considering, without noticing whether there

was anyone in the room or not, he flung his arms round her, and

began to cover her face, her hands, her neck with kisses.

Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought

what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying

anything of it; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him,

to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her.

Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing.

"Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours," she said at last,

pressing his hands to her bosom.

"So it had to be," he said. "So long as we live, it must be so.

I know it now."

"That's true," she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing

his head. "Still there is something terrible in it after all

that has happened."

"It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our

love, if it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there

being something terrible in it," he said, lifting his head and

parting his strong teeth in a smile.

And she could not but respond with a smile--not to his words, but

to the love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her

chilled cheeks and cropped head with it.

"I don't know you with this short hair. You've grown so pretty.

A boy. But how pale you are!"




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