Page 416 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

beforehand,’ and a wicked light gleamed in her eyes, that
had been so soft a minute before. ‘‘Eh, you love another
man, and have entered into criminal intrigues with him?’’
(Mimicking her husband, she threw an emphasis on the

word ‘criminal,’ as Alexey Alexandrovitch did.) ‘ ‘I
warned you of the results in the religious, the civil, and
the domestic relation. You have not listened to me. Now
In cannot let you disgrace my name,—’’ ‘and my son,’ she
had meant to say, but about her son she could not jest,—
‘‘disgrace my name, and’—and more in the same style,’
she added. ‘In general terms, he’ll say in his official
manner, and with all distinctness and precision, that he
cannot let me go, but will take all measures in his power
to prevent scandal. And he will calmly and punctually act
in accordance with his words. That’s what will happen.
He’s not a man, but a machine, and a spiteful machine
when he’s angry,’ she added, recalling Alexey
Alexandrovitch as she spoke, with all the peculiarities of
his figure and manner of speaking, and reckoning against
him every defect she could find in him, softening nothing
for the great wrong she herself was doing him.
‘But, Anna,’ said Vronsky, in a soft and persuasive
voice, trying to soothe her, ‘we absolutely must, anyway,
tell him, and then be guided by the line he takes.’

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