When Anna came in in her hat and cape, and her lovely hand rapidly swinging her parasol, and stood beside him, it was with a feeling of relief that Vronsky broke away from the plaintive eyes of Golenishtchev which fastened persistently upon him, and with a fresh rush of love looked at his charming companion, full of life and happiness.  Golenishtchev recovered himself with an effort, and at first was dejected and gloomy, but Anna, disposed to feel friendly with everyone as she was at that time, soon revived his spirits by her direct and lively manner.  After trying various subjects of conversation, she got him upon painting, of which he talked very well, and she listened to him attentively.  They walked to the house they had taken, and looked over it.

“I am very glad of one thing,” said Anna to Golenishtchev when they were on their way back, “Alexey will have a capital atelier.  You must certainly take that room,” she said to Vronsky in Russian, using the affectionately familiar form as though she saw that Golenishtchev would become intimate with them in their isolation, and that there was no need of reserve before him.

“Do you paint?” said Golenishtchev, turning round quickly to Vronsky.

“Yes, I used to study long ago, and now I have begun to do a little,” said Vronsky, reddening.

“He has great talent,” said Anna with a delighted smile.  “I’m no judge, of course.  But good judges have said the same.”

Chapter 8

Anna, in that first period of her emancipation and rapid return to health, felt herself unpardonably happy and full of the joy of life.  The thought of her husband’s unhappiness did not poison her happiness.  On one side that memory was too awful to be thought of.  On the other side her husband’s unhappiness had given her too much happiness to be regretted.  The memory of all that had happened after her illness:  her reconciliation with her husband, its breakdown, the news of Vronsky’s wound, his visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her husband’s house, the parting from her son—­all that seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which she had waked up alone with Vronsky abroad.  The thought of the harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel who has shaken off another man clinging to him.  That man did drown.  It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over these fearful facts.

One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture, and when now she recalled all the past, she remembered that one reflection.  “I have inevitably made that man wretched,” she thought; “but I don’t want to profit by his misery.  I too am suffering, and shall suffer; I am losing what I prized above everything—­I am losing my good name and my son.  I have done wrong, and