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“At last!” she greeted him joyfully. “And Anna? How glad I am!
Where are you stopping? I can fancy after your delightful travels you
must find our poor Petersburg horrid. I can fancy your honeymoon in
Rome. How about the divorce? Is that all over?”
Vronsky noticed that Betsy’s enthusiasm waned when she learned
that no divorce had as yet taken place.
“People will throw stones at me, I know,” she said, “but I shall come
and see Anna; yes, I shall certainly come. You won’t be here long, I
suppose?”
And she did certainly come to see Anna the same day, but her tone
was not at all the same as in former days. She unmistakably prided
herself on her courage, and wished Anna to appreciate the fidelity of
her friendship. She only stayed ten minutes, talking of society gossip,
and on leaving she said:
“You’ve never told me when the divorce is to be? Supposing I’m
ready to fling my cap over the mill, other starchy people will give you
the cold shoulder until you’re married. And that’s so simple nowadays.
Ca se fait. So you’re going on Friday? Sorry we shan’t see each other
again.”
From Betsy’s tone Vronsky might have grasped what he had to
expect from the world; but he made another effort in his own family.
His mother he did not reckon upon. He knew that his mother, who had
been so enthusiastic over Anna at their first acquaintance, would have
no mercy on her now for having ruined her son’s career. But he had
more hope of Varya, his brother’s wife. He fancied she would not throw
stones, and would go simply arid directly to see Anna, and would
receive her in her own house.
The day after his arrival Vronsky went to her, and finding her alone,
expressed his wishes directly.
“You know, Alexey,” she said after hearing him, “how fond I am of
you, and how ready I am to do anything for you; but I have not spoken,
because I knew I could be of no use to you and to Anna Arkadyevna,”
she said, articulating the name “Anna Arkadyevna” with particular
care. “Don’t suppose, please, that I judge her. Never; perhaps in her
place I should have done the same. I don’t and can’t enter into that,”
she said, glancing timidly at his gloomy face. “But one must call things
by their names. You want me to go and see her, to ask her here, and to
rehabilitate her in society; but do understand that I CANNOT do so.
I have daughters growing up, and I must live in the world for my
husband’s sake. Well, I’m ready to come and see Anna Arkadyevna:
she will understand that I can’t ask her here, or I should have to do so
in such a way that she would not meet people who look at things
differently; that would offend her. I can’t raise her...”
“Oh, I don’t regard her as fallen more than hundreds of women you
do receive!” Vronsky interrupted her still more gloomily, and he got up
in silence, understanding that his sister-in-law’s decision was not to be
shaken.
“Alexey! don’t be angry with me. Please understand that I’m not to
blame,” began Varya, looking at him with a timid smile.
“I’m not angry with you,” he said still as gloomily; “but I’m sorry in
two ways. I’m sorry, too, that this means breaking up our friendship—
if not breaking up, at least weakening it. You will understand that for
me, too, it cannot be otherwise.”
And with that he left her.
Vronsky knew that further efforts were useless, and that he had to
spend these few days in Petersburg as though in a strange town, avoid-
ing every sort of relation with his own old circle in order not to be
exposed to the annoyances and humiliations which were so intolerable