"What you were talking about just now was error, not love."
"Remember that I have forbidden you to speak that word, that hateful word," said Anna, trembling; and instantly she felt that by the use of that one word "forbidden," she recognized a certain jurisdiction over him, and thus encouraged him to speak of love. " For a long time I have been wanting to say this to you," she continued, looking steadily into his eyes, and all aflame with the color that burned in her face. "I have come to-night on purpose, knowing that I should find you here; I have come to tell you this must come to an end. I have never had to blush before any one before, and you somehow cause me to feel guilty in my own eyes."
He looked at her, and was struck with the new spiritual beauty of her face.
"What do you want me to do?" said he, simply and gravely.
"I want you to go to Moscow, and beg Kitty's pardon."
"You do not want that," said he.
He saw that she was compelling herself to say one thing, while she really desired something else.
"If you love me, as you say you do," she murmured, "then do what will give me peace!"
Vronsky's face lighted up.
"Don't you know that you are my life? But I don't know what peace means, and I can't give it to you. Myself, my love, I can give — yes, I cannot think of you and of myself separately. For me, you and I are one. I see no hope of peace for you or for me in the future. I see the possibility of despair, of misfortune, — unless I see the possibility of happiness, and what happiness! .... Is it really impossible?" he murmured, with his lips only, but she heard him.
She directed all the forces of her mind to say what she ought; but, instead of that, she looked at him with love in her eyes, and said nothing.
"Ah!" he thought, with rapture, "at the very moment
