Page 896 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

forgiveness,’ he read. He smiled contemptuously, and
flung down the telegram. That this was a trick and a fraud,
of that, he thought for the first minute, there could be no
doubt.

‘There is no deceit she would stick at. She was near her
confinement. Perhaps it is the confinement. But what can
be their aim? To legitimize the child, to compromise me,
and prevent a divorce,’ he thought. ‘But something was
said in it: I am dying....’ He read the telegram again, and
suddenly the plain meaning of what was said in it struck
him.
‘And if it is true?’ he said to himself. ‘If it is true that in
the moment of agony and nearness to death she is
genuinely penitent, and I, taking it for a trick, refuse to
go? That would not only be cruel, and everyone would
blame me, but it would be stupid on my part.’
‘Piotr, call a coach; I am going to Petersburg,’ he said
to his servant.
Alexey Alexandrovitch decided that he would go to
Petersburg and see his wife. If her illness was a trick, he
would say nothing and go away again. If she was really in
danger, and wished to see him before her death, he would
forgive her if he found her alive, and pay her the last
duties if he came too late.

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