"I told you that I would not allow you to receive your lover in this house."
"I had to see him to..."
She stopped, not finding a reason.
"I do not enter into the details of why a woman wants to see her lover."
"I meant, I only..." she said, flushing hotly.
This coarseness of his angered her, and gave her courage. "Surely you must feel how easy it is for you to insult me?" she said.
"An honest man and an honest woman may be insulted, but to tell a thief he's a thief is simply _la constatation d'un fait_."
"This cruelty is something new I did not know in you."
"You call it cruelty for a husband to give his wife liberty, giving her the honorable protection of his name, simply on the condition of observing the proprieties: is that cruelty?"
"It's worse than cruel--it's base, if you want to know!" Anna cried, in a rush of hatred, and getting up, she was going away.
"No!" he shrieked, in his shrill voice, which pitched a note higher than usual even, and his big hands clutching her by the arm so violently that red marks were left from the bracelet he was squeezing, he forcibly sat her down in her place.
"Base!
If you care to use that word, what is base is to forsake husband and child for a lover, while you eat your husband's bread!"
She bowed her head.
She did not say what she had said the evening before to her lover, that _he_ was her husband, and her husband was superfluous; she did not even think that.
She felt all the justice of his words, and only said softly:
"You cannot describe my position as worse than I feel it to be myself; but what are you saying all this for?"
"What am I saying it for? what for?" he went on, as angrily. "That you may know that since you have not carried out my wishes in regard to observing outward decorum, I will take measures to put an end to this state of things."
"Soon, very soon, it will end, anyway," she said; and again, at the thought of death near at hand and now desired, tears came into her eyes.
"It will end sooner than you and your lover have planned!
If you must have the satisfaction of animal passion..."
"Alexey Alexandrovitch!
I won't say it's not generous, but it's not like a gentleman to strike anyone who's down."
"Yes, you only think of yourself! But the sufferings of a man who was your husband have no interest for you. You don't care that his whole life is ruined, that he is thuff...thuff..."
Alexey Alexandrovitch was speaking so quickly that he stammered, and was utterly unable to articulate the word "suffering."
In the end he pronounced it "thuffering."
She wanted to laugh, and was immediately ashamed that anything could amuse her at such a moment.
And for the first time, for an instant, she felt for him, put herself in his place, and was sorry for him.
But what could she say or do?
Her head sank, and she sat silent.
He too was silent for some time, and then began speaking in a frigid, less shrill voice, emphasizing random words that had no special significance.
"I came to tell you..." he said.
She glanced at him.
"No, it was my fancy," she thought, recalling the expression of his face when he stumbled over the word "suffering." "No; can a man with those dull eyes, with that self-satisfied complacency, feel anything?"
"I cannot change anything," she whispered.
"I have come to tell you that I am going tomorrow to Moscow, and shall not return again to this house, and you will receive notice of what I decide through the lawyer into whose hands I shall intrust the task of getting a divorce.
My son is going to my sister's," said Alexey Alexandrovitch, with an effort recalling what he had meant to say about his son.
"You take Seryozha to hurt me," she said, looking at him from under her brows. "You do not love him....
Leave me Seryozha!"
"Yes, I have lost even my affection for my son, because he is associated with the repulsion I feel for you. But still I shall take him.
Goodbye!"
And he was going away, but now she detained him.
"Alexey Alexandrovitch, leave me Seryozha!" she whispered once more. "I have nothing else to say.
Leave Seryozha till my...I shall soon be confined; leave him!"
Alexey Alexandrovitch flew into a rage, and, snatching his hand from her, he went out of the room without a word.
Chapter 5
The waiting-room of the celebrated Petersburg lawyer was full when Alexey Alexandrovitch entered it.
Three ladies--an old lady, a young lady, and a merchant's wife--and three gentlemen-- one a German banker with a ring on his finger, the second a merchant with a beard, and the third a wrathful-looking government clerk in official uniform, with a cross on his neck-- had obviously been waiting a long while already.
Two clerks were writing at tables with scratching pens.
The appurtenances of the writing-tables, about which Alexey Alexandrovitch was himself very fastidious, were exceptionally good. He could not help observing this.