“Yes, yes. …” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, not able to answer for the tears that were choking him.
“Yes, yes, I understand you,” he brought out at last.
“I want to know what she would like,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch.
“I am afraid she does not understand her own position. She is not a judge,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, recovering himself. “She is crushed, simply crushed by your generosity. If she were to read this letter, she would be incapable of saying anything, she would only hang her head lower than ever.”
“Yes, but what’s to be done in that case? how explain, how find out her wishes?”
“If you will allow me to give my opinion, I think that it lies with you to point out directly the steps you consider necessary to end the position.”
“So you consider it must be ended?” Alexey Alexandrovitch interrupted him. “But how?” he added, with a gesture of his hands before his eyes not usual with him. “I see no possible way out of it.”
“There is some way of getting out of every position,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, standing up and becoming more cheerful. “There was a time when you thought of breaking off. … If you are convinced now that you cannot make each other happy. …”
“Happiness may be variously understood. But suppose that I agree to everything, that I want nothing: what way is there of getting out of our position?”
“If you care to know my opinion,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch with the same smile of softening, almond-oil tenderness with which he had been talking to Anna. His kindly smile was so winning that Alexey