`Perhaps,' answered Vronsky.

`You say perhaps,' Serpukhovskoy went on, as though guessing his thoughts, `but I say for certain. And that's what I wanted to see you for. Your action was just what it should have been. I see that, but you ought not to persevere in it. I only ask you to give me carte blanche. I'm not going to offer you my protection.... Though, indeed, why shouldn't I protect you? - you've protected me often enough! I should hope our friendship rises above all that sort of thing. Yes,' he said, smiling to him as tenderly as a woman, `give me carte blanche, retire from the regiment, and I'll get you in imperceptibly.'

`But you must understand that I want nothing,' said Vronsky, `except to leave things just as they were.'

Serpukhovskoy got up and stood facing him.

`You said, leave things just as they were. I understand what that means. But listen: we're the same age, you've known a greater number of women perhaps than I have.' Serpukhovskoy's smile and gestures told Vronsky that he mustn't be afraid, that he would be tender and careful in touching the sore place. `But I'm married, and believe me, in getting to know one's wife thoroughly, if one loves her, as someone has said, one gets to know all women better than if one knew thousands of them.'

`We're coming directly!' Vronsky shouted to an officer, who looked into the room and called them to the colonel.

Vronsky was longing now to hear Serpukhovskoy to the end, and know what he would say to him.

`And here's my opinion for you. Women are the chief stumbling block in a man's career. It's hard to love a woman and do anything. There's only one way of having love conveniently without its being a hindrance - that's marriage. Now, how am I to tell you what I mean?' said Serpukhovskoy, who liked similes. `Wait, wait a minute! Yes, just as you can only carry a fardeau yet do something with your hands when the fardeau is tied on your back - and that's marriage. And that's what I felt when I was married. My hands were suddenly set free. But if you drag that fardeau about with you without marriage, your hands will always be so full that you can do nothing. Look at Mazankov, at Krupov. They've ruined their careers for the sake of women.'

`What women!' said Vronsky, recalling the Frenchwoman and the actress with whom the two men he had mentioned were connected.

`The firmer the woman's footing in society, the worse it is. That's much the same as not merely carrying the fardeau in your arms, but tearing it away from someone else.'

`You have never loved,' Vronsky said softly, looking straight before him and thinking of Anna.

`Perhaps. But you remember what I've said to you. And another thing - women are all more materialistic than men. We make something immense out of love, but they are always terre-èa-terre.'

`Directly, directly!' he cried to a footman who came in. But the footman had not come to call them again, as he supposed. The footman brought Vronsky a note.

`A man brought it from Princess Tverskaia.'

Vronsky opened the letter, and flushed crimson.

`My head's begun to ache; I'm going home,' he said to Serpukhovskoy.

`Oh, good-by then. You give me carte blanche!'

`We'll talk about it later on; I'll look you up in Peterburg.'