“Pardon, let me say all I have to say.  I love you.  But I am not speaking of myself; the most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself.  It may very well be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place; it may be that they are called forth by my mistaken impression.  In that case, I beg you to forgive me.  But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for them, then I beg you to think a little, and if your heart prompts you, to speak out to me...”

Alexey Alexandrovitch was unconsciously saying something utterly unlike what he had prepared.

“I have nothing to say.  And besides,” she said hurriedly, with difficulty repressing a smile, “it’s really time to be in bed.”

Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, and, without saying more, went into the bedroom.

When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed.  His lips were sternly compressed, and his eyes looked away from her.  Anna got into her bed, and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to her again.  She both feared his speaking and wished for it.  But he was silent.  She waited for a long while without moving, and had forgotten about him.  She thought of that other; she pictured him, and felt how her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought of him.  Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore.  For the first instant Alexey Alexandrovitch seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased; but after an interval of two breathings the snore sounded again, with a new tranquil rhythm.

“It’s late, it’s late,” she whispered with a smile.  A long while she lay, not moving, with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost fancied she could herself see in the darkness.

Chapter 10

From that time a new life began for Alexey Alexandrovitch and for his wife.  Nothing special happened.  Anna went out into society, as she had always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy’s, and met Vronsky everywhere.  Alexey Alexandrovitch saw this, but could do nothing.  All his efforts to draw her into open discussion she confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity.  Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed.  Alexey Alexandrovitch, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this.  Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow which he felt was lifted over him.  Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more, that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her.  But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk.  Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying.  And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her.