Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/575

 "Ah! I have just sent for the doctor," said Alekseï Aleksandrovitch.

"What for? I am well."

"For the baby, the little one cries so much; they think that the nurse hasn't enough nourishment for her."

"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I urged it so? All the same" (Alekseï Aleksandrovitch understood what she meant by all the same) " she is a baby, and they will kill her." She rang, and sent for the little one. "I wanted to nurse her, and you wouldn't let me, and now you blame me."

"I do not blame you for anything." ....

"Yes, you do blame me! Bozhe moi! why didn't I die!" She began to sob. "Forgive me: I am nervous and unjust," she said, trying to control herself. "But go away."

"No, this state of things cannot go on," said Alekseï Aleksandrovitch to himself, as he left his wife's room.

Never before had he been so convinced of the impossibility of prolonging such a situation before the world: never had his wife's dislike of him, and the strength of that mysterious brutal force which had taken possession of his life, to rule it contrary to the needs of his soul and to make him change his relations to his wife, appeared to him with such clearness.

He saw clearly that the world and his wife exacted something from him which he did not fully understand. He felt that it aroused within him feelings of hatred, which disturbed his peace, and destroyed the worth of his victory over himself. Anna, in his opinion, ought to have nothing more to do with Vronsky; but if everybody considered this impossible, he was ready to tolerate their meeting, on condition that the children should not be disgraced, or his own life disturbed.

Wretched as this was—it was, nevertheless, better than a rupture whereby she would be placed in a shameful and hopeless position, and he himself would be deprived of all that he loved. But he felt his powerlessness in this struggle, and knew beforehand that all were against him and that he would be prevented from doing