Page 1059 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

But Levin did not hear her. Flushing, he took the letter
from Marya Nikolaevna, his brother’s former mistress, and
began to read it. This was the second letter he had
received from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter, Marya

Nikolaevna wrote that his brother had sent her away for
no fault of hers, and, with touching simplicity, added that
though she was in want again, she asked for nothing, and
wished for nothing, but was only tormented by the
thought that Nikolay Dmitrievitch would come to grief
without her, owing to the weak state of his health, and
begged his brother to look after him. Now she wrote
quite differently. She had found Nikolay Dmitrievitch,
had again made it up with him in Moscow, and had
moved with him to a provincial town, where he had
received a post in the government service. But that he had
quarreled with the head official, and was on his way back
to Moscow, only he had been taken so ill on the road that
it was doubtful if he would ever leave his bed again, she
wrote. ‘It’s always of you he has talked, and, besides, he
has no more money left.’
‘Read this; Dolly writes about you,’ Kitty was
beginning, with a smile; but she stopped suddenly,
noticing the changed expression on her husband’s face.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’

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