456 457
intent of the law T...Act 18, and the note to Act 36. A flash of eager-
ness suffused the face of Alexey Alexandrovitch as he rapidly wrote
out a synopsis of these ideas for his own benefit. Having filled a sheet
of paper, he got up, rang, and sent a note to the chief secretary of his
department to look up certain necessary facts for him. Getting up and
walking about the room, he glanced again at the portrait, frowned, and
smiled contemptuously. After reading a little more of the book on
Egyptian hieroglyphics, and renewing his interest in it, Alexey
Alexandrovitch went to bed at eleven o’clock, and recollecting as he lay
in bed the incident with his wife, he saw it now in by no means such a
gloomy light.
Chapter 15.
Though Anna had obstinately and with exasperation contradicted
Vronsky when he told her their position was impossible, at the bottom
of her heart she regarded her own position as false and dishonorable,
and she longed with her whole soul to change it. On the way home
from the races she had told her husband the truth in a moment of
excitement, and in spite of the agony she had suffered in doing so, she
was glad of it. After her husband had left her, she told herself that she
was glad, that now everything was made clear, and at least there would
be no more lying and deception. It seemed to her beyond doubt that
her position was now made clear forever. It might be bad, this new
position, but it would be clear; there would be no indefiniteness or
falsehood about it. The pain she had caused herself and her husband
in uttering those words would be rewarded now by everything being
made clear, she thought. That evening she saw Vronsky, but she did
not tell him of what had passed between her and her husband, though,
to make the position definite, it was necessary to tell him.
When she woke up next morning the first thing that rose to her
mind was what she had said to her husband, and those words seemed
to her so awful that she could not conceive now how she could have
brought herself to utter those strange, coarse words, and could not
imagine what would come of it. But the words were spoken, and