y of escape
in her thought was death, and he would not let her say it.

"Not at all," he said. "Listen to me. You can't see your own
position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my opinion." Again
he smiled discreetly his almond-oil smile. "I'll begin from the
beginning. You married a man twenty years older than yourself.
You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It
was a mistake, let's admit."

"A fearful mistake!" said Anna.

"But I repeat, it's an accomplished fact. Then you had, let us
say, the misfortune to love a man not your husband. That was a
misfortune; but that, too, is an accomplished fact. And your
husband knew it and forgave it." He stopped at each sentence,
waiting for her to object, but she made no answer. "That's so.
Now the question is: can you go on living with your husband? Do
you wish it? Does he wish it?"

"I know nothing, nothing."

"But you said yourself that you can't endure him."

"No, I didn't say so. I deny it. I can't tell, I don't know
anything about it."

"Yes, but let..."

"You can't understand. I feel I'm lying head downwards in a sort
of pit, but I ought not to save myself. And I can't . . ."

"Never mind, we'll slip something under and pull you out. I
understand you: I understand that you can't take it on yourself
to express your wishes, your feelings."

"There's nothing, nothing I wish...except for it to be all
over."

"But he sees this and knows it. And do you suppose it weighs on
him any less than on you? You're wretched, he's wretched, and
what good can come of it? while divorce would solve the
difficulty completely." With some effort Stepan Arkadyevitch
brought out his central idea, and looked significantly at her.

She said nothing, and shook her cropped head in dissent. But
from the look in her face, that suddenly brightened into its old
beauty, he saw that if she did not desire this, it was simply
because it seemed to her unattainable happiness.

"I'm awfully sorry for you! And how happy I should be if I could
arrange things!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling more boldly.
"Don't speak, don't say a word! God grant only that I may speak
as I feel. I'm going to him."

Anna looked at him with dreamy, shining eyes, and said nothing.

Chapter 22

Stepan Arkadyevitch, with the same somewhat solemn expression
with which he used to take his presidential chair at his board,
walked into Alexey Alexandrovitch's room.