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Again, just as at the first moment of hearing of her rupture with

her husband, Vronsky, on reading the letter, was unconsciously

carried away by the natural sensation aroused in him by his own

relation to the betrayed husband. Now while he held his letter in

his hands, he could not help picturing the challenge, which he

would most likely find at home today or tomorrow, and the duel

itself, in which, with the same cold and haughty expression that

his face was assuming at this moment he would await the injured

husband's shot, after having himself fired into the air. And at

that instant there flashed across his mind the thought of what

Serpuhovskoy had just said to him, and what he had himself been

thinking in the morning-that it was better not to bind

himself-and he knew that this thought he could not tell her.