Page 615 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

beforehand that the matter would never come to real
danger, it would amount to my simply trying to gain a
certain sham reputation by such a challenge. That would
be dishonest, that would be false, that would be deceiving

myself and others. A duel is quite irrational, and no one
expects it of me. My aim is simply to safeguard my
reputation, which is essential for the uninterrupted pursuit
of my public duties.’ Official duties, which had always
been of great consequence in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s
eyes, seemed of special importance to his mind at this
moment. Considering and rejecting the duel, Alexey
Alexandrovitch turned to divorce—another solution
selected by several of the husbands he remembered.
Passing in mental review all the instances he knew of
divorces (there were plenty of them in the very highest
society with which he was very familiar), Alexey
Alexandrovitch could not find a single example in which
the object of divorce was that which he had in view. In all
these instances the husband had practically ceded or sold
his unfaithful wife, and the very party which, being in
fault, had not the right to contract a fresh marriage, had
formed counterfeit, pseudo-matrimonial ties with a self-
styled husband. In his own case, Alexey Alexandrovitch
saw that a legal divorce, that is to say, one in which only

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