What would become of his son in case of a divorce?  To leave him with his mother was out of the question.  The divorced mother would have her own illegitimate family, in which his position as a stepson and his education would not be good.  Keep him with him?  He knew that would be an act of vengeance on his part, and that he did not want.  But apart from this, what more than all made divorce seem impossible to Alexey Alexandrovitch was, that by consenting to a divorce he would be completely ruining Anna.  The saying of Darya Alexandrovna at Moscow, that in deciding on a divorce he was thinking of himself, and not considering that by this he would be ruining her irrevocably, had sunk into his heart.  And connecting this saying with his forgiveness of her, with his devotion to the children, he understood it now in his own way.  To consent to a divorce, to give her her freedom, meant in his thoughts to take from himself the last tie that bound him to life—­the children whom he loved; and to take from her the last prop that stayed her on the path of right, to thrust her down to her ruin.  If she were divorced, he knew she would join her life to Vronsky’s, and their tie would be an illegitimate and criminal one, since a wife, by the interpretation of the ecclesiastical law, could not marry while her husband was living.  “She will join him, and in a year or two he will throw her over, or she will form a new tie,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch.  “And I, by agreeing to an unlawful divorce, shall be to blame for her ruin.”  He had thought it all over hundreds of times, and was convinced that a divorce was not at all simple, as Stepan Arkadyevitch had said, but was utterly impossible.  He did not believe a single word Stepan Arkadyevitch said to him; to every word he had a thousand objections to make, but he listened to him, feeling that his words were the expression of that mighty brutal force which controlled his life and to which he would have to submit.

“The only question is on what terms you agree to give her a divorce.  She does not want anything, does not dare ask you for anything, she leaves it all to your generosity.”

“My God, my God! what for?” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, remembering the details of divorce proceedings in which the husband took the blame on himself, and with just the same gesture with which Vronsky had done the same, he hid his face for shame in his hands.

“You are distressed, I understand that.  But if you think it over...”

“Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also,” thought Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“Yes, yes!” he cried in a shrill voice.  “I will take the disgrace on myself, I will give up even my son, but...but wouldn’t it be better to let it alone?  Still you may do as you like...”

And turning away so that his brother-in-law could not see him, he sat down on a chair at the window.  There was bitterness, there was shame in his heart, but with bitterness and shame he felt joy and emotion at the height of his own meekness.