Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 11/119

She had called him "Stiva," and he glanced at her with gratitude,

and moved to take her hand, but she drew back from him with

aversion.

"I think of the children, and for that reason I would do anything

in the world to save them, but I don't myself know how to save

them. By taking them away from their father, or by leaving them

with a vicious father--yes, a vicious father.... Tell me, after

what...has happened, can we live together? Is that possible?

Tell me, eh, is it possible?" she repeated, raising her voice,

"after my husband, the father of my children, enters into a

love affair with his own children's governess?"

"But what could I do? what could I do?" he kept saying in a

pitiful voice, not knowing what he was saying, as his head sank

lower and lower.

"You are loathsome to me, repulsive!" she shrieked, getting more

and more heated. "Your tears mean nothing! You have never loved

me; you have neither heart nor honorable feeling! You are

hateful to me, disgusting, a stranger--yes, a complete

stranger!" With pain and wrath she uttered the word so terrible

to herself--_stranger_.

He looked at her, and the fury expressed in her face alarmed and

amazed him. He did not understand how his pity for her

exasperated her. She saw in him sympathy for her, but not love.

"No, she hates me. She will not forgive me," he thought.

"It is awful! awful!" he said.

At that moment in the next room a child began to cry; probably it

had fallen down. Darya Alexandrovna listened, and her face

suddenly softened.

She seemed to be pulling herself together for a few seconds, as

though she did not know where she was, and what she was doing,

and getting up rapidly, she moved towards the door.

"Well, she loves my child," he thought, noticing the change of

her face at the child's cry, "my child: how can she hate me?"

"Dolly, one word more," he said, following her.

"If you come near me, I will call in the servants, the children!

They may all know you are a scoundrel! I am going away at once,

and you may live here with your mistress!"

And she went out, slamming the door.

Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, wiped his face, and with a subdued

tread walked out of the room. "Matvey says she will come round;

but how? I don't see the least chance of it. Ah, oh, how

horrible it is! And how vulgarly she shouted," he said to

himself, remembering her shriek and the words--"scoundrel" and

"mistress." "And very likely the maids were listening! Horribly

vulgar! horrible!" Stepan Arkadyevitch stood a few seconds

alone, wiped his face, squared his chest, and walked out of the

room.