Divorce appeared to him impossible also on other still more weighty grounds.

What would become of his son in case of a divorce? To leave him with his mother was out of the question.

The divorced mother would have her own illegitimate family, in which his position as a stepson and his education would not be good.

Keep him with him? He knew that would be an act of vengeance on his part, and that he did not want.

But apart from this, what more than all made divorce seem impossible to Alexey Alexandrovitch was, that by consenting to a divorce he would be completely ruining Anna.