Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/397

 did not tell him what had taken place between her husband and herself, although it was needful to tell him, in order that the affair might be definitely settled.

The next morning, when she awoke, her first memory was of the words that she had spoken to her husband; and they seemed to her so odious, that she could not imagine now how she could have brought herself to say such strange brutal words, and she could not conceive what the result of them would be. But the words were irrevocable, and Alekseï Aleksandrovitch had departed without replying.

"I have seen Vronsky since, and I did not tell him. Even at the moment he went away, I wanted to hold him back and to tell him; but I postponed it because I felt how strange it was that I did not tell him at the first moment. Why did I have the desire, and yet not speak?"

And, in reply to this question, the hot flush of shame kindled in her face. She realized that it was shame that kept her from speaking. Her position, which the evening before had seemed to her so clear, suddenly presented itself as very far from clear, as inextricable. She began to fear the dishonor about which she had not thought before. When she considered what her husband might do to her, the most terrible ideas came to her mind. It occurred to her that at any instant the steward might appear to drive her out of house and home, and that her shame might be proclaimed to all the world. She asked herself where she could go if they drove her from home, and she found no answer.

When she thought of Vronsky, she imagined that he did not love her, and that he was already beginning to tire of her, and that she could not impose herself on him, and she felt angry with him. It seemed to her that the words which she spoke to her husband, and which she incessantly repeated to herself, were spoken so that everybody could hear them, and had heard them. She could not bring herself to look in the faces of those with whom she lived. She could not bring herself to