And she could not but respond with a smile—­not to his words, but to the love in his eyes.  She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and cropped head with it.

“I don’t know you with this short hair.  You’ve grown so pretty.  A boy.  But how pale you are!”

“Yes, I’m very weak,” she said, smiling.  And her lips began trembling again.

“We’ll go to Italy; you will get strong,” he said.

“Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your family with you?” she said, looking close into his eyes.

“It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise.”

“Stiva says that he has agreed to everything, but I can’t accept his generosity,” she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky’s face.  “I don’t want a divorce; it’s all the same to me now.  Only I don’t know what he will decide about Seryozha.”

He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of divorce.  What did it all matter?

“Don’t speak of that, don’t think of it,” he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not look at him.

“Oh, why didn’t I die! it would have been better,” she said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him.

To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and impossible.  But now, without an instant’s consideration, he declined it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army.

A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one.

PART 5

Chapter 1

Princess Shtcherbatskaya considered that it was out of the question for the wedding to take place before Lent, just five weeks off, since not half the trousseau could possibly be ready by that time.  But she could not but agree with Levin that to fix it for after Lent would be putting it off too late, as an old aunt of Prince Shtcherbatsky’s was seriously ill and might die, and then the mourning would delay the wedding still longer.  And therefore, deciding to divide the trousseau into two parts—­a larger and smaller trousseau—­the princess consented to have the wedding before Lent.  She determined that she would get the smaller part of the trousseau all ready now, and the larger part should be made later, and she was much vexed with Levin because he was incapable of giving her a serious answer to the question whether he agreed to this arrangement or not.  The arrangement was the more suitable as, immediately after the wedding, the young people were to go to the country, where the more important part of the trousseau would not be wanted.