Page 146 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

thanks to this circumstance, she did not carry out her
threat to her husband—that is to say, she remembered that
her sister-in-law was coming. ‘And, after all, Anna is in no
wise to blame,’ thought Dolly. ‘I know nothing of her

except the very best, and I have seen nothing but kindness
and affection from her towards myself.’ It was true that as
far as she could recall her impressions at Petersburg at the
Karenins’, she did not like their household itself; there was
something artificial in the whole framework of their family
life. ‘But why should I not receive her? If only she doesn’t
take it into her head to console me!’ thought Dolly. ‘All
consolation and counsel and Christian forgiveness, all that
I have thought over a thousand times, and it’s all no use.’
All these days Dolly had been alone with her children.
She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that
sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.
She knew that in one way or another she would tell Anna
everything, and she was alternately glad at the thought of
speaking freely, and angry at the necessity of speaking of
her humiliation with her, his sister, and of hearing her
ready-made phrases of good advice and comfort. She had
been on the lookout for her, glancing at her watch every
minute, and, as so often happens, let slip just that minute
when her visitor arrived, so that she did not hear the bell.

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