"It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our love, if it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there being something terrible in it," he said, lifting his head and parting his strong teeth in a smile.
And she could not but respond with a smile — not to his words, but to the love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and cropped head with it.
"I don't know you with this short hair. You've grown so pretty. A boy. But how pale you are!"
"Yes, I'm very weak," she said, smiling. And her lips began trembling again.
"We'll go to Italy; you will get strong," he said.
"Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your family with you?" she said, looking close into his eyes.
"It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise."
"Stiva says that he has agreed to everything, but I can't accept his generosity," she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky's face. "I don't want a divorce; it's all the same to me now. Only I don't know what he will decide about Seryozha."
He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of divorce. What did it all matter?
"Don't speak of that, don't think of it," he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not look at him.
"Oh, why didn't I die! it would have been better," she said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him.
To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and impossible. But now, without an instant's consideration, he declined it, and observing dissatisfaction in the most exalted quarters at this step, he immediately retired from the army.
A month later Alexey Alexandrovitch was left alone with his son in his house at Petersburg, while Anna and Vronsky had gone abroad, not having obtained a divorce, but having absolutely declined all idea of one.
