Page 692 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

could not help picturing the challenge, which he would
most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel
itself in which, with the same cold and haughty expression
that his face was assuming at this moment he would await

the injured husband’s shot, after having himself fired into
the air. And at that instant there flashed across his mind
the thought of what Serpuhovskoy had just said to him,
and what he had himself been thinking in the morning—
that it was better not to bind himself —and he knew that
this thought he could not tell her.
Having read the letter, he raised his eyes to her, and
there was no determination in them. She saw at once that
he had been thinking about it before by himself. She knew
that whatever he might say to her, he would not say all he
thought. And she knew that her last hope had failed her.
This was not what she had been reckoning on.
‘You see the sort of man he is,’ she said, with a shaking
voice; ‘he..’
‘Forgive me, but I rejoice at it,’ Vronsky interrupted.
‘For God’s sake, let me finish!’ he added, his eyes
imploring her to give him time to explain his words. ‘I
rejoice, because things cannot, cannot possibly remain as
he supposes.’

691 of 1759