Don Quixote

no answer, and in her face he beheld a
struggle.
"Forgive me, if what I have said displeases you," he said humbly.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_XXX ^paragraph 5}
He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, so
obdurately that, for long, she could find no answer.
"What you say is wrong, and I beg of you, if you are a good man,
to forget what you have said, even as I shall forget it," she said
at last.
"Not a single word of yours, nor a single gesture, shall I ever
forget- nor could I forget...."
"Enough, enough!" she cried, vainly attempting to give a stern
expression to her face, which he was avidly scrutinizing. Clutching at
the cold doorpost, she clambered up the steps and quickly entered
the corridor of the car. But in this little corridor she paused,
reviewing in her imagination all that had occurred. Without
recalling her own words or his, she realized instinctively that that
momentary conversation had brought them fearfully closer; and she was
both frightened and made happy thereby. After standing thus a few
seconds, she went into the car and sat down in her place. That
tensed state which had tormented her at first was not only renewed,
but grew greater and reached such a pitch that she was afraid that, at
any moment, something would snap within her from the excessive
tension. She did not sleep all night. But in that nervous tension, and
in the reveries that filled her imagination, there was nothing
unpleasant or gloomy; on the contrary, there was something joyous,
glowing and exhilarating. Toward morning Anna dozed off as she sat,
and when she awoke it was already light, and the train was nearing
Peterburg. At once thoughts of home, of her husband and son, and the
details of the day ahead, and days to follow, came thronging upon her.
At Peterburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, the
first face that attracted her attention was that of her husband.
"Oh, my God! What has happened to his ears?" she thought looking at
his frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears, that struck
her so now, as they propped up the brim of his round hat. Catching
sight of her he went to meet her, pursing his lips into their habitual
mocking smile, and fixing her with his big, tired eyes. Some
unpleasant sensation contracted her heart as she met his obdurate
and tired glance, as though she had expected to see him a different
man. She was particularly struck by that feeling of dissatisfaction
with herself which she experienced on meeting him. This was an
intimate, familiar feeling, like that state of dissimulation which she
experienced in her relations with her husband; but hitherto she had
not taken note of the feeling; now she was clearly and painfully aware
of it.
{PART_ONE|CHAPTER_XXX ^paragraph 10}
"Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as he was during
the second year after marriage, was consumed