Chapter 24

`Then there is all the more reason for you to legalize your position, if possible,' said Dolly.

`Yes, if possible,' said Anna, speaking all at once in an utterly different tone, subdued and mournful.

`Surely you don't mean a divorce is impossible? I was told your husband had consented to it.'

`Dolly, I don't want to talk about that.'

`Oh, we won't then,' Darya Alexandrovna hastened to say, noticing the expression of suffering on Anna's face. `All I see is that you take too gloomy a view of things.'

`I? Not at all! I'm very satisfied and happy. You see, je fais passions. Veslovsky...'

`Yes, to tell the truth, I don't like Veslovsky's tone,' said Darya Alexandrovna, anxious to change the subject.

`Oh, that's nonsense! It amuses Alexei, and that's all; but he's a boy, and quite under control. You know, I turn him as I please. It's just as it might be with your Grisha.... Dolly!' she suddenly changed the subject. `You say I take too gloomy a view of things. You can't understand. It's too awful! I try not to take any view of it at all.'

`But I think you ought to. You ought to do all you can.'

`But what can I do? Nothing. You tell me to marry Alexei, and say I don't think about it. I don't think about it!' she repeated, and a flush rose into her face. She got up, straightening her chest, and sighed heavily. With her light step she began pacing up and down the room, stopping now and then. `I don't think of it? Not a day, not an hour passes that I don't think of it, and blame myself for what I think... because thinking of that may drive me mad. Drive me mad!' she repeated. `When I think of it, I can't sleep without morphine. But never mind. Let us talk quietly. They tell me - divorce. In the first place, he won't give me a divorce. He's under the influence of Countess Lidia Ivanovna now.'