with their
swollen veins. They were rubbing each other.

"Let us never speak of it," she added more calmly.

"I have left this question to you to decide, and I am very glad
to see..." Alexey Alexandrovitch was beginning.

"That my wish coincides with your own," she finished quickly,
exasperated at his talking so slowly while she knew beforehand
all he would say.

"Yes," he assented; "and Princess Tverskaya's interference in the
most difficult private affairs is utterly uncalled for. She
especially..."

"I don't believe a word of what's said about her," said Anna
quickly. "I know she really cares for me."

Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed and said nothing. She played
nervously with the tassel of her dressing-gown, glancing at him
with that torturing sensation of physical repulsion for which she
blamed herself, though she could not control it. Her only desire
now was to be rid of his oppressive presence.

"I have just sent for the doctor," said Alexey Alexandrovitch.

"I am very well; what do I want the doctor for?"

"No, the little one cries, and they say the nurse hasn't enough
milk."

"Why didn't you let me nurse her, when I begged to? Anyway"
(Alexey Alexandrovitch knew what was meant by that "anyway"),
"she's a baby, and they're killing her." She rang the bell and
ordered the baby to be brought her. "I begged to nurse her, I
wasn't allowed to, and now I'm blamed for it."

"I don't blame..."

"Yes, you do blame me! My God! why didn't I die!" And she broke
into sobs. "Forgive me, I'm nervous, I'm unjust," she said,
controlling herself, "but do go away..."

"No, it can't go on like this," Alexey Alexandrovitch said to
himself decidedly as he left his wife's room.

Never had the impossibility of his position in the world's eyes,
and his wife's hatred of him, and altogether the might of that
mysterious brutal force that guided his life against his
spiritual inclinations, and exacted conformity with its decrees
and change in his attitude to his wife, been presented to him
with such distinctness as that day. He saw clearly that all the
world and his wife expected of him something, but what exactly,
he could not make out. He felt that this was rousing in his soul
a feeling of anger destructive of his peace of mind and of all
the good of his achievement. He believed that for Anna herself
it would be better to break off all relations with Vronsky; but
if they all thought this out of the question,