"Excuse me, you seem to put me in the position of the guilty
party," observed Alexey Alexandrovitch.
"Oh, no, oh, no, not at all! please understand me," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, touching his hand again, as though feeling sure
this physical contact would soften his brother-in-law. "All I
say is this: her 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'être 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,
divorce is allowed," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Divorce is
sanctioned even by our church. And we see..."