Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/838

 the cruelty of her position, want to help her. Am I right?"

"Yes," said Darya Aleksandrovna, shutting up her sunshade, "but ...."

"No," he interrupted, and he involuntarily stopped and obliged her to stop also, though he had no intention of putting his companion into an awkward situation. "No one feels more strongly and completely the cruelty of Anna's position than I do. And you will realize this if you will do me the honor to believe that I am not heartless. I am the cause of her being in this position, and therefore I feel it."

"I understand," said Darya Aleksandrovna, involuntarily admiring him for the honest and straight-forward way in which he said this. "But for the very reason that you feel yourself the cause I fear you are inclined to exaggerate," said she. "Her position in society is difficult, I admit."

"In society it is hell!" said he, frowning gloomily; "you can't conceive moral tortures worse than those which Anna endured at Petersburg during the fortnight we were there; and I beg you to believe...."

"Yes, but here? .... And so far neither she nor you feel the need of a society life." ....

"Society! why should I need it?" exclaimed Vronsky, scornfully.

"Up to the present time, and perhaps it will be so always, you are calm and happy. I see in Anna that she is happy, perfectly happy, and she has already told me that she is," said Darya Aleksandrovna, smiling.

And while she spoke the doubt arose in her mind: "Is Anna really happy?"

But Vronsky, it seemed, had no doubt on that score:—

"Yes, yes, I know that she has revived after all her sufferings. She is happy .... she is happy now. But I?" said Vronskv. "I am afraid of what the future has in store for us .... excuse me, do you want to go?"

"No, it is immaterial."

"Well, then, let us sit down here."

Darya Aleksandrovna sat down on a garden bench