Part 2 - Chapter 23 - Page 2

he said, with reproachful tenderness.

"Yes," she went on, "become your mistress, and complete the ruin
of..."

Again she would have said "my son," but she could not utter that
word.

Vronsky could not understand how she, with her strong and
truthful nature, could endure this state of deceit, and not long
to get out of it. But he did not suspect that the chief cause of
it was the word--son, which she could not bring herself to
pronounce. When she thought of her son, and his future attitude
to his mother, who had abandoned his father, she felt such terror
at what she had done, that she could not face it; but, like a
woman, could only try to comfort herself with lying assurances
that everything would remain as it always had been, and that it
was possible to forget the fearful question of how it would be
with her son.

"I beg you, I entreat you," she said suddenly, taking his hand,
and speaking in quite a different tone, sincere and tender,
"never speak to me of that!"

"But, Anna..."

"Never. Leave it to me. I know all the baseness, all the horror
of my position; but it's not so easy to arrange as you think.
And leave it to me, and do what I say. Never speak to me of it.
Do you promise me?...No, no, promise!..."

"I promise everything, but I can't be at peace, especially after
what you have told me. I can't be at peace, when you can't be at
peace...."

"I?" she repeated. "Yes, I am worried sometimes; but that will
pass, if you will never talk about this. When you talk about
it--it's only then it worries me."

"I don't understand," he said.

"I know," she interrupted him, "how hard it is for your truthful
nature to lie, and I grieve for you. I often think that you have
ruined your whole life for me."

"I was just thinking the very same thing," he said; "how could
you sacrifice everything for my sake? I can't forgive myself
that you're unhappy!"

"I unhappy?" she said, coming closer to him, and looking at him
with an ecstatic smile of love. "I am like a hungry man who has
been given food. He may be cold, and dressed in rags, and
ashamed, but he is not unhappy. I unhappy? No, this is my
unhappiness...."

She could hear the sound of her son's voice coming towards them,
and glancing swiftly round the terrace, she got up impulsively.
Her eyes glowed with the fire he knew so well; with a rapid
movement she raised her lovely hands, covered with rings, took
his head, looked a long look into his face, and, putting up her
face with smiling, parted lips, swiftly kissed his mouth and both
eyes, and pushed him away. She would have gone, but he held her
back.

"When?" he murmured in a whisper, gazing in ecstasy