Stepan Arkadyevitch was touched.  He was silent for a space.

“Alexey Alexandrovitch, believe me, she appreciates your generosity,” he said.  “But it seems it was the will of God,” he added, and as he said it felt how foolish a remark it was, and with difficulty repressed a smile at his own foolishness.

Alexey Alexandrovitch would have made some reply, but tears stopped him.

“This is an unhappy fatality, and one must accept it as such.  I accept the calamity as an accomplished fact, and am doing my best to help both her and you,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.

When he went out of his brother-in-law’s room he was touched, but that did not prevent him from being glad he had successfully brought the matter to a conclusion, for he felt certain Alexey Alexandrovitch would not go back on his words.  To this satisfaction was added the fact that an idea had just struck him for a riddle turning on his successful achievement, that when the affair was over he would ask his wife and most intimate friends.  He put this riddle into two or three different ways.  “But I’ll work it out better than that,” he said to himself with a smile.

Chapter 23

Vronsky’s wound had been a dangerous one, though it did not touch the heart, and for several days he had lain between life and death.  The first time he was able to speak, Varya, his brother’s wife, was alone in the room.

“Varya,” he said, looking sternly at her, “I shot myself by accident.  And please never speak of it, and tell everyone so.  Or else it’s too ridiculous.”

Without answering his words, Varya bent over him, and with a delighted smile gazed into his face.  His eyes were clear, not feverish; but their expression was stern.

“Thank God!” she said.  “You’re not in pain?”

“A little here.”  He pointed to his breast.

“Then let me change your bandages.”

In silence, stiffening his broad jaws, he looked at her while she bandaged him up.  When she had finished he said: 

“I’m not delirious.  Please manage that there may be no talk of my having shot myself on purpose.”

“No one does say so.  Only I hope you won’t shoot yourself by accident any more,” she said, with a questioning smile.

“Of course I won’t, but it would have been better...”

And he smiled gloomily.

In spite of these words and this smile, which so frightened Varya, when the inflammation was over and he began to recover, he felt that he was completely free from one part of his misery.  By his action he had, as it were, washed away the shame and humiliation he had felt before.  He could now think calmly of Alexey Alexandrovitch.  He recognized all his magnanimity, but he did not now feel himself humiliated by it.  Besides, he got back again into the beaten track of his life.  He saw the possibility of