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ful 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 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 ev-
erything 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 la-
dies 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 mo-
ment 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.
Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and there was no
determination in them. She saw at once that he had been thinking
about it before by himself. She knew that whatever he might say to
her, he would not say all he thought. And she knew that her last hope
had failed her. This was not what she had been reckoning on.
“You see the sort of man he is,” she said, with a shaking voice;
“he...”
“Forgive me, but I rejoice at it,” Vronsky interrupted. “For God’s
sake, let me finish!” he added, his eyes imploring her to give him time to
explain his words. “I rejoice, because things cannot, cannot possibly
remain as he supposes.”
“Why can’t they?” Anna said, restraining her tears, and obviously
attaching no sort of consequence to what he said. She felt that her fate