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 better, more attractive women, just as my abominable, wretched, and beloved husband has done."

Dolly made no reply, and only sighed. Anna remarked this sigh, which signified dissent, and she proceeded. She had in reserve still more arguments, still stronger, and impossible to answer.

"You say that this is immoral. But this requires to be reasoned out," she went on saying. "You forget my position. How can I desire children? I don't say anything about the suffering, I am not afraid of that. But think what my children will be! Unfortunate beings, who will have to bear a name which is not theirs,—by their very birth compelled to blush for their father and mother."

"Well, this is the very reason why a divorce is necessary."

But Anna did not hear her. She wanted to produce the same arguments by which she had so many times persuaded herself.

"Why was the gift of reason bestowed on me, if I cannot employ it in preventing the birth of more unhappy beings?"

She looked at Dolly, but without waiting for any answer she went on:—

"I should always feel my guilt toward these unhappy children. If they do not exist, they will not know misery; but if they exist and suffer, then I am to blame."

These were the same arguments as Darya Aleksandrovna had used to herself, but now she listened and did not understand them. She said to herself:—

"How can one be culpable with regard to non-existent existences?" And suddenly the thought came, "Could it have been possibly any better if my darling Grisha had never existed?" and it struck so unpleasantly, so strangely, that she shook her head to chase away the cloud of maddening thoughts that came into her mind.

"No, I do not know; I believe it wrong," she said, with an expression of disgust.

"But you must not forget that you and I .... and moreover," added Anna, notwithstanding the wealth of her