Page 149 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

And directly she had said this, her face suddenly
softened. Anna lifted the wasted, thin hand of Dolly,
kissed it and said:
‘But, Dolly, what’s to be done, what’s to be done?

How is it best to act in this awful position—that’s what
you must think of.’
‘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

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