conceived. Would you believe it, that knowing he’s a good man, a splendid man, that I’m not worth his little finger, still I hate him. I hate him for his generosity. And there’s nothing left for me but. …”
She would have said death, but Stepan Arkadyevitch would not let her finish.
“You are ill and overwrought,” he said; “believe me, you’re exaggerating dreadfully. There’s nothing so terrible in it.”
And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one else in Stepan Arkadyevitch’s place, having to do with such despair, would have ventured to smile (the smile would have seemed brutal); but in his smile there was so much of sweetness and almost feminine tenderness that his smile did not wound, but softened and soothed. His gentle, soothing words and smiles were as soothing and softening as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this.
“No, Stiva,” she said, “I’m lost, lost! worse than lost! I can’t say yet that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that it’s not over. I’m an overstrained string that must snap. But it’s not ended yet … and it will have a fearful end.”
“No matter, we must let the string be loosened, little by little. There’s no position from which there is no way of escape.”
“I have thought, and thought. Only one. …”
Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one way of escape in her thought was death, and he would not let her say it.
“Not at all,” he said. “Listen to me. You can’t see your own position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my opinion.” Again he smiled discreetly his almond-oil smile. “I’ll begin from the beginning. You married a man twenty years older than yourself. You married him without love and not knowing what love was. It was a mistake, let’s admit.”