Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/579

 "Yes! but allow me ...."

"You cannot understand it. I feel that I am precipitated, head first, into an abyss, and I may not save myself. I cannot."

"You will see that we can prevent you from falling, and from being crushed. I understand you. I feel that you are not able to express your feelings, your desires."

"I desire nothing, nothing—only to end all this."

"He sees this, and knows it. Do you suppose that he doesn't feel the strain as much as you do? You suffer, he suffers; and what way of escape is there from all this torture? Then, when a divorce would settle everything...."

Stepan Arkadyevitch with difficulty expressed his principal idea, and looked to Anna to see what effect it would have.

She said nothing and shook her head disapprovingly. But by the expression of her face, which suddenly lighted up with something of her former beauty, he saw that, if she did not wish this, it was because the thought of its being realized was too enticing.

"I am awfully sorry for you! how happy I should be if I could arrange it for you!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Don't say a word! If God will only permit me to express all that I feel! I am going to find Alekseï Aleksandrovitch."

Anna looked at him out of her brilliant, thoughtful eyes, and did not reply.

CHAPTER XXII

went into his brother-in-law's cabinet, with the solemn face which he tried to assume when he sat in his official chair at a council-meeting. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, with his arms behind his back, was walking up and down the room, considering the same thing that Stepan Arkadyevitch had been discussing with his wife.

"Shall I disturb you?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch,