Today he had not been at home all day, and she felt so lonely and wretched in being on bad terms with him that she wanted to forget it all, to forgive him, and be reconciled with him; she wanted to throw the blame on herself and to justify him.

“I am myself to blame.  I’m irritable, I’m insanely jealous.  I will make it up with him, and we’ll go away to the country; there I shall be more at peace.”

“Unnatural!” She suddenly recalled the word that had stung her most of all, not so much the word itself as the intent to wound her with which it was said.  “I know what he meant; he meant—­ unnatural, not loving my own daughter, to love another person’s child.  What does he know of love for children, of my love for Seryozha, whom I’ve sacrificed for him?  But that wish to wound me!  No, he loves another woman, it must be so.”

And perceiving that, while trying to regain her peace of mind, she had gone round the same circle that she had been round so often before, and had come back to her former state of exasperation, she was horrified at herself.  “Can it be impossible?  Can it be beyond me to control myself?” she said to herself, and began again from the beginning.  “He’s truthful, he’s honest, he loves me.  I love him, and in a few days the divorce will come.  What more do I want?  I want peace of mind and trust, and I will take the blame on myself.  Yes, now when he comes in, I will tell him I was wrong, though I was not wrong, and we will go away tomorrow.”

And to escape thinking any more, and being overcome by irritability, she rang, and ordered the boxes to be brought up for packing their things for the country.

At ten o’clock Vronsky came in.

Chapter 24

“Well, was it nice?” she asked, coming out to meet him with a penitent and meek expression.

“Just as usual,” he answered, seeing at a glance that she was in one of her good moods.  He was used by now to these transitions, and he was particularly glad to see it today, as he was in a specially good humor himself.

“What do I see?  Come, that’s good!” he said, pointing to the boxes in the passage.

“Yes, we must go.  I went out for a drive, and it was so fine I longed to be in the country.  There’s nothing to keep you, is there?”

“It’s the one thing I desire.  I’ll be back directly, and we’ll talk it over; I only want to change my coat.  Order some tea.”

And he went into his room.

There was something mortifying in the way he had said “Come, that’s good,” as one says to a child when it leaves off being naughty, and still more mortifying was the contrast between her penitent and his self-confident tone; and for one instant she felt the lust of strife rising up in her again, but making an effort she conquered it, and met Vronsky as good-humoredly as before.

When he came in she told him, partly repeating phrases she had prepared beforehand, how she had spent the day, and her plans for going away.