him. She felt that at that moment she could not express in words the sense of shame, rapture, and horror at this entrance into a new life, and she did not wish to speak about it or vulgarize the feeling with definite words.
But even afterward, on the next day, on the third day, not only did she fail to find words in which to express the complication of these feelings, but she could not even find thoughts by which to formulate to herself all that was in her soul.
She said to herself:—
"No, I cannot now think about this; by and by, when I am calmer."
But this calmness never came. Every time when the questions arose: "What had she done? and what would become of her? and what ought she to do?" she was filled with horror, and she compelled herself not to think about them.
"By and by, by and by," she repeated, "when I am calmer."
On the other hand, during sleep, when she had no control of her thoughts, her situation appeared in its ugly nakedness. One dream almost every night haunted her. She dreamed that she was the wife both of Vronsky and of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, and that both lavished their caresses on her. Alekseï Aleksandrovitch kissed her hands, and said, weeping, "How happy we are now!" Alekseï Vronsky, also, was there, and he was her husband. She was amazed that she had ever believed such a thing impossible; and she laughed as she explained to them that this was far simpler, that both would henceforth be satisfied and happy. But this dream weighed on her like a nightmare, and she always awoke in fright.
CHAPTER XII
Even in the first weeks after Levin returned from Moscow, every time that with flushed cheeks and a trembling in his limbs he remembered the shame of his rejection, he would say to himself:—
