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"No; I will break through it, I will break through it!" she

cried, jumping up and keeping back her tears. And she went to the

writing-table to write him another letter. But at the bottom of

her heart she felt that she was not strong enough to break

through anything, that she was not strong enough to get out of

her old position, however false and dishonorable it might be.

She sat down at the writing-table, but instead of writing she

clasped her hands on the table, and, laying her head on them,

burst into tears, with sobs and heaving breast like a child

crying. She was weeping that her dream of her position being made

clear and definite had been annihilated forever. She knew

beforehand that everything would go on in the old way, and far

worse, indeed, than in the old way. She felt that the position in

the world that she enjoyed, and that had seemed to her of so

little consequence in the morning, that this position was

precious to her, that she would not have the strength to exchange

it for the shameful position of a woman who has abandoned husband

and child to join her lover; that however much she might

struggle, she could not be stronger than herself.