ANNA DMÍTRIEVNA. And how willingly Várya Kazántseva would have married him! What a girl she is, and how she loves him!
PRINCE ABRÉZKOV [smiling]. C'est compter sans son hôte![16] That is quite out of the question now. I think it's best to submit, and help him to get married.
ANNA DMÍTRIEVNA. To a divorced woman—and have him meet his wife's husband?… I can't think how you can speak of it so calmly. Is she a woman a mother could wish to see as the wife of her only son—and such a son?
PRINCE ABRÉZKOV. But what is to be done, my dear friend? Of course it would be better if he married a girl whom you knew and liked; but since that's impossible … Besides it's not as if he were going to marry a gipsy, or goodness knows who …! Lisa Protásova is a very nice good woman. I know her, through my niece Nelly, and know her to be a modest, kind-hearted, affectionate and moral woman.
ANNA DMÍTRIEVNA. A moral woman—who makes up her mind to leave her husband!
PRINCE ABRÉZKOV. This is not like you! You're unkind and harsh! Her husband is the kind of man of whom one says that they are their own worst enemies; but he is an even greater enemy to his wife. He is a weak, fallen, drunken fellow. He has squandered all his property and hers too. She has a child.… How can you condemn her for leaving such a man? Nor has she left him: he left her.
ANNA DMÍTRIEVNA. Oh, what mud! What mud! And I have to soil my hands with it!
PRINCE ABRÉZKOV. And how about your religion?
ANNA DMÍTRIEVNA. Of course, of course! To forgive, “As we forgive them that trespass against us.” Mais, c'est plus fort que moi![17]
PRINCE ABRÉZKOV. How could she live with such a man? If she had not loved anyone else she would have had to leave him. She would have had to, for her child's sake. The husband himself—an intelligent kind-hearted man when he is in his senses—advises her to do it.…