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.
