stand very well his sudden pause, but she felt that, having fairly begun to speak of his intimate affairs concerning which he could not talk with Anna, he would now make a full breast of it, and that the question of his activities in the country belonged to the same category as his relations to Anna.
"And so I keep on," said he, growing more cheerful again, "The chief thing is that when one works one must have the persuasion that what one has done will not die with him, that he will have heirs .... but I have none. .... Conceive the feelings of a man who knows that his children and those of the wife he worships do not belong to him; that they belong to a man who hates them, and would never recognize them. Isn't it horrible?"
He was silent and deeply moved.
"Yes, of course," said Darya Aleksandrovna ; "I understand this. But what can Anna do?"
"Well, that brings me to the purpose of this talk," said the count, controlling himself with effort. "Anna can get a divorce. It depends on her. .... If we are to petition the emperor to legitimize the children, a divorce is essential. But that depends on Anna. Her husband consented to that, and your husband had it all arranged some time ago, and I know that he now would not refuse; all it requires is for Anna to write to him. He said up and down that he would consent, if Anna would apply for it. Of course," he added, frowning, "this condition is one of those Pharisaic cruelties of which only heartless people are capable. He knows what torture all remembrance of him has for her, and so he exacts this letter from her. I understand that it is painful to her. But the reasons are so imperative that she must passer pardessus toutes ces finesses de sentiment. Il va du bonhenr et de l'existence d'Anna et de ces enfants.[1] I don't speak about myself, though it is painful, very painful, to me," said he, with a wrathful expression against whoever was responsible for this state of things.
- ↑ She ought to be above these excessive sensibilities; her happiness is involved, as well as her children's.
