Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 71/119

"All's over, and there's nothing more," said Dolly. "And the

worst of all is, you see, that I can't cast him off: there are

the children, I am tied. And I can't live with him! it's a

torture to me to see him."

"Dolly, darling, he has spoken to me, but I want to hear it from

you: tell me about it."

Dolly looked at her inquiringly.

Sympathy and love unfeigned were visible on Anna's face.

"Very well," she said all at once. "But I will tell you it from

the beginning. You know how I was married. With the education

mamma gave us I was more than innocent, I was stupid. I knew

nothing. I know they say men tell their wives of their former

lives, but Stiva"--she corrected herself--"Stepan Arkadyevitch

told me nothing. You'll hardly believe it, but till now I

imagined that I was the only woman he had known. So I lived

eight years. You must understand that I was so far from

suspecting infidelity, I regarded it as impossible, and then--

try to imagine it--with such ideas, to find out suddenly all the

horror, all the loathsomeness.... You must try and understand

me. To be fully convinced of one's happiness, and all at

once..." continued Dolly, holding back her sobs, "to get a

letter...his letter to his mistress, my governess. No, it's too

awful!" She hastily pulled out her handkerchief and hid her face

in it. "I can understand being carried away by feeling," she

went on after a brief silence, "but deliberately, slyly deceiving

me...and with whom?... To go on being my husband together with

her...it's awful! You can't understand..."

"Oh, yes, I understand! I understand! Dolly, dearest, I do

understand," said Anna, pressing her hand.

"And do you imagine he realizes all the awfulness of my

position?" Dolly resumed. "Not the slightest! He's happy and

contented."

"Oh, no!" Anna interposed quickly. "He's to be pitied, he's

weighed down by remorse..."

"Is he capable of remorse?" Dolly interrupted, gazing intently

into her sister-in-law's face.

"Yes. I know him. I could not look at him without feeling sorry

for him. We both know him. He's good-hearted, but he's proud,

and now he's so humiliated. What touched me most..." (and here

Anna guessed what would touch Dolly most) "he's tortured by two

things: that he's ashamed for the children's sake, and that,

loving you--yes, yes, loving you beyond everything on earth,"

she hurriedly interrupted Dolly, who would have answered--"he

has hurt you, pierced you to the heart. 'No, no, she cannot

forgive me,' he keeps saying."