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position is intolerable, and it might be alleviated by you, and you will
lose nothing by it. I will arrange it all for you, so that you’ll not notice it.
You did promise it, you know.”
“The promise was given before. And I had supposed that the
question of my son had settled the matter. Besides, I had hoped that
Anna Arkadyevna had enough generosity...” Alexey Alexandrovitch
articulated with difficulty, his lips twitching and his face white.
“She leaves it all to your generosity. She begs, she implores one
thing of you—to extricate her from the impossible position in which
she is placed. She does not ask for her son now. Alexey Alexandrovitch,
you are a good man. Put yourself in her position for a minute. The
question of divorce for her in her position is a question of life and
death. If you had not promised it once, she would have reconciled
herself to her position, she would have gone on living in the country.
But you promised it, and she wrote to you, and moved to Moscow. And
here she’s been for six months in Moscow, where every chance meeting
cuts her to the heart, every day expecting an answer. Why, it’s like
keeping a condemned criminal for six months with the rope round his
neck, promising him perhaps death, perhaps mercy. Have pity on her,
and I will undertake to arrange everything. Vos scrupules...”
“I am not talking about that, about that...” Alexey Alexandrovitch
interrupted with disgust. “But, perhaps, I promised what I had no
right to promise.”
“So you go back from your promise?”
“I have never refused to do all that is possible, but I want time to
consider how much of what I promised is possible.”
“No, Alexey Alexandrovitch!” cried Oblonsky, jumping up, “I won’t
believe that! She’s unhappy as only an unhappy woman can be, and
you cannot refuse in such...”
“As much of what I promised as is possible. Vous professez d’etre
libre penseur. But I as a believer cannot, in a matter of such gravity, act
in opposition to the Christian law.”
“But in Christian societies and among us, as far as I’m aware, di-
vorce is allowed,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Divorce is sanctioned
even by our church. And we see...”
“It is allowed, but not in the sense...”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, you are not like yourself,” said Oblonsky,
after a brief pause. “Wasn’t it you (and didn’t we all appreciate it in
you?) who forgave everything, and moved simply by Christian feeling
was ready to make any sacrifice? You said yourself: if a man take thy
coat, give him thy cloak also, and now...”
“I beg,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch shrilly, getting suddenly onto
his feet, his face white and his jaws twitching, “I beg you to drop
this...to drop...this subject!”
“Oh, no! Oh, forgive me, forgive me if I have wounded you,” said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, holding out his hand with a smile of embarrass-
ment; “but like a messenger I have simply performed the commission
given me.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch gave him his hand, pondered a little, and
said:
“I must think it over and seek for guidance. The day after tomor-
row I will give you a final answer,” he said, after considering a moment.