Without even troubling himself to see Betsy out of his flat, forgetting all his resolutions, without asking when he could see her, where her husband was, Vronsky drove straight to the Karenins’. He ran up the stairs seeing no one and nothing, and with a rapid step, almost breaking into a run, he went into her room. And without considering, without noticing whether there was anyone in the room or not, he flung his arms round her, and began to cover her face, her hands, her neck with kisses.
Anna had been preparing herself for this meeting, had thought what she would say to him, but she did not succeed in saying anything of it; his passion mastered her. She tried to calm him, to calm herself, but it was too late. His feeling infected her. Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing.
“Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours,” she said at last, pressing his hands to her bosom.
“So it had to be,” he said. “So long as we live, it must be so. I know it now.”
“That’s true,” she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his head. “Still there is something terrible in it after all that has happened.”
“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.