Page 793 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 4

Alexey Alexandrovitch, after meeting Vronsky on his
own steps, drove, as he had intended, to the Italian opera.
He sat through two acts there, and saw everyone he had
wanted to see. On returning home, he carefully
scrutinized the hat stand, and noticing that there was not a
military overcoat there, he went, as usual, to his own
room. But, contrary to his usual habits, he did not go to
bed, he walked up and down his study till three o’clock in
the morning. The feeling of furious anger with his wife,
who would not observe the proprieties and keep to the
one stipulation he had laid on her, not to receive her lover
in her own home, gave him no peace. She had not
complied with his request, and he was bound to punish
her and carry out his threat—obtain a divorce and take
away his son. He knew all the difficulties connected with
this course, but he had said he would do it, and now he
must carry out his threat. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had
hinted that this was the best way out of his position, and
of late the obtaining of divorces had been brought to such
perfection that Alexey Alexandrovitch saw a possibility of
overcoming the formal difficulties. Misfortunes never

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