KARENIN. Dearest, everything will be settled soon. After all, he's promised, and I've asked my secretary to go to him with the petition and not to leave until he's signed it. Really, sometimes, if I didn't know him as I do, I'd think he was trying on purpose to discomfort us. LISA. No. No. It's, only the same weakness and honesty fighting together in him. He doesn't want to lie. However, I'm sorry you sent him money. KARENIN. If I hadn't, it might have delayed things. Lisa. I know, but money seems so ugly. KARENIN (slightly ruffled). I hardly think it's necessary to be so delicate with Fedya. LISA. Perhaps, perhaps. (Smiling.) But don't you think we are becoming very selfish? KARENIN. Maybe. But it's all your fault, dear. After all, this hopelessness and waiting, to think of being happy at last! I suppose happiness does make us selfish. LISA. Don't believe you're alone in your happiness or selfishness. I am so filled with joy it makes me almost afraid. Misha's all right, your mother loves me, and above all, you are here, close to me, loving me as I love you. KARENIN (bending over her and searching her eyes). You're sure you've no regret? LISA. From the day I found out about that gypsy woman, my mind underwent a change that has set me free. KARENIN. You're sure? [Kissing her hands. LISA (passionately). Darling, I've only one desire now, and that is to have you forget the past and love as I do. [Her little boy toddles in R., sees them and stops. [To the child. Come here, my sweetheart. [He goes to her and she takes him on her knees. KARENIN. What strange contradictory instincts and desires make up our beings! LISA. Why? KARENIN (slowly). I don't know. When I came back from abroad, knew I'd lost you, I was unhappy, terribly. Yet, it was enough for me to learn that you at least remembered me. Afterward, when we became friends, and you were kind to me, and into our friendship wavered a spark of something more than friendship, ah, I was almost happy! Only one thing tormented me: fear that such a feeling wronged Fedya. Afterwards, when Fedya tortured you so, I saw I could help. Then a certain definite hope sprang up in me. And later, when he became impossible and you decided to leave him, and I showed you my heart for the first time, and you didn't say no, but went away in tears--then I was happy through and through. Then came the possibility of joining our lives. Mamma loved you. You told me you loved me, that Fedya was gone out of your heart, out of your life forever, and there was only, only me.... Ah, Lisa, for what more could I ask! Yet the past tortured me. Awful fancies would flush up into my happiness, turning it all into hatred for your past. LISA (interrupting reproachfully). Victor!