"I have nothing to say.
And besides," she said hurriedly, with difficulty repressing a smile, "it's really time to be in bed."
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, and, without saying more, went into the bedroom.
When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed.
His lips were sternly compressed, and his eyes looked away from her.
Anna got into her bed, and lay expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to her again.
She both feared his speaking and wished for it.
But he was silent.
She waited for a long while without moving, and had forgotten about him.
She thought of that other; she pictured him, and felt how her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought of him.
Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore.
For the first instant Alexey Alexandrovitch seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased; but after an interval of two breathings the snore sounded again, with a new tranquil rhythm.
"It's late, it's late," she whispered with a smile.
A long while she lay, not moving, with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost fancied she could herself see in the darkness.
Chapter 10.
From that time a new life began for Alexey Alexandrovitch and for his wife.
Nothing special happened.
Anna went out into society, as she had always done, was particularly often at Princess Betsy's, and met Vronsky everywhere.
Alexey Alexandrovitch saw this, but could do nothing.
All his efforts to draw her into open discussion she confronted with a barrier which he could not penetrate, made up of a sort of amused perplexity.
Outwardly everything was the same, but their inner relations were completely changed.
Alexey Alexandrovitch, a man of great power in the world of politics, felt himself helpless in this. Like an ox with head bent, submissively he awaited the blow which he felt was lifted over him.
Every time he began to think about it, he felt that he must try once more, that by kindness, tenderness, and persuasion there was still hope of saving her, of bringing her back to herself, and every day he made ready to talk to her.
But every time he began talking to her, he felt that the spirit of evil and deceit, which had taken possession of her, had possession of him too, and he talked to her in a tone quite unlike that in which he had meant to talk.
Involuntarily he talked to her in his habitual tone of jeering at anyone who should say what he was saying.
And in that tone it was impossible to say what needed to be said to her.
Chapter 11.
That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires; that which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and even for that reason more entrancing dream of bliss, that desire had been fulfilled.
He stood before her, pale, his lower jaw quivering, and besought her to be calm, not knowing how or why.
"Anna!
Anna!" he said with a choking voice, "Anna, for pity's sake!..."
But the louder he spoke, the lower she dropped her once proud and gay, now shame-stricken head, and she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting, down on the floor, at his feet; she would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her.
"My God!
Forgive me!" she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to her bosom.
She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness; and as now there was no one in her life but him, to him she addressed her prayer for forgiveness.
Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more.
He felt what a murderer must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life.
That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love.
There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame.
Shame at their spiritual nakedness crushed her and infected him.
But in spite of all the murderer's horror before the body of his victim, he must hack it to pieces, hide the body, must use what he has gained by his murder.
And with fury, as it were with passion, the murderer falls on the body, and drags it and hacks at it; so he covered her face and shoulders with kisses.
She held his hand, and did not stir.
"Yes, these kisses--that is what has been bought by this shame.
Yes, and one hand, which will always be mine--the hand of my accomplice."
She lifted up that hand and kissed it.
He sank on his knees and tried to see her face; but she hid it, and said nothing.
At last, as though making an effort over herself, she got up and pushed him away.
Her face was still as beautiful, but it was only the more pitiful for that.
"All is over," she said; "I have nothing but you.