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proofs of his wife’s guilt, required by the law, out of the question; he
saw that a certain refinement in that life would not admit of such
proofs being brought forward, even if he had them, and that to bring
forward such proofs would damage him in the public estimation more
than it would her.
An attempt at divorce could lead to nothing but a public scandal,
which would be a perfect godsend to his enemies for calumny and
attacks on his high position in society. His chief object, to define the
position with the least amount of disturbance possible, would not be
attained by divorce either. Moreover, in the event of divorce, or even of
an attempt to obtain a divorce, it was obvious that the wife broke off all
relations with the husband and threw in her lot with the lover. And in
spite of the complete, as he supposed, contempt and indifference he
now felt for his wife, at the bottom of his heart, Alexey Alexandrovitch
still had one feeling left in regard to her—a disinclination to see her
free to throw in her lot with Vronsky, so that her crime would be to her
advantage. The mere notion of this so exasperated Alexey
Alexandrovitch, that directly it rose to his mind he groaned with in-
ward agony, and got up and changed his place in the carriage, and for a
long while after, he sat with scowling brows, wrapping his numbed and
bony legs in the fleecy rug.
“Apart from formal divorce, One might still do like Karibanov,
Paskudin, and that good fellow Dram—that is, separate from one’s
wife,” he went on thinking, when he had regained his composure. But
this step too presented the same drawback of public scandal as a
divorce, and what was more, a separation, quite as much as a regular
divorce, flung his wife into the arms of Vronsky. “No, it’s out of the
question, out of the question!” he said again, twisting his rug about him
again. “I cannot be unhappy, but neither she nor he ought to be
happy.”
The feeling of jealousy, which had tortured him during the period
of uncertainty, had passed away at the instant when the tooth had
been with agony extracted by his wife’s words. But that feeling had
been replaced by another, the desire, not merely that she should not be
triumphant, but that she should get due punishment for her crime. He
did not acknowledge this feeling, but at the bottom of his heart he
longed for her to suffer for having destroyed his peace of mind—his
honor. And going once again over the conditions inseparable from a
duel, a divorce, a separation, and once again rejecting them, Alexey
Alexandrovitch felt convinced that there was only one solution,—to
keep her with him, concealing what had happened from the world, and
using every measure in his power to break off the intrigue, and still
more—though this he did not admit to himself—to punish her. “I must
inform her of my conclusion, that thinking over the terrible position in
which she has placed her family, all other solutions will be worse for
both sides than an external status quo, and that such I agree to retain,
on the strict condition of obedience on her part to my wishes, that is to
say, cessation of all intercourse with her lover.” When this decision had
been finally adopted, another weighty consideration occurred to Alexey
Alexandrovitch in support of it. “By such a course only shall I be
acting in accordance with the dictates of religion,” he told himself. “In
adopting this course, I am not casting off a guilty wife, but giving her a
chance of amendment; and, indeed, difficult as the task will be to me, I
shall devote part of my energies to her reformation and salvation.”
Though Alexey Alexandrovitch was perfectly aware that he could
not exert any moral influence over his wife, that such an attempt at
reformation could lead to nothing but falsity; though in passing through
these difficult moments he had not once thought of seeking guidance