“But I believe Anna Arkadyevna refuses a divorce, if I make it a condition to leave me my son. I replied in that sense, and supposed that the matter was ended. I consider it at an end,” shrieked Alexey Alexandrovitch.

“But, for heaven’s sake, don’t get hot!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, touching his brother-in-law’s knee. “The matter is not ended. If you will allow me to recapitulate, it was like this: when you parted, you were as magnanimous as could possibly be; you were ready to give her everything — freedom, divorce even. She appreciated that. No, don’t think that. She did appreciate it — to such a degree that at the first moment, feeling how she had wronged you, she did not consider and could not consider everything. She gave up everything.