Page 239 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

patriotic, philanthropic institution) ‘was going splendidly,
but with these gentlemen it’s impossible to do anything,’
added Countess Lidia Ivanovna in a tone of ironical
submission to destiny. ‘They pounce on the idea, and

distort it, and then work it out so pettily and unworthily.
Two or three people, your husband among them,
understand all the importance of the thing, but the others
simply drag it down. Yesterday Pravdin wrote to me..’
Pravdin was a well-known Panslavist abroad, and
Countess Lidia Ivanovna described the purport of his
letter.
Then the countess told her of more disagreements and
intrigues against the work of the unification of the
churches, and departed in haste, as she had that day to be
at the meeting of some society and also at the Slavonic
committee.
‘It was all the same before, of course; but why was it I
didn’t notice it before?’ Anna asked herself. ‘Or has she
been very much irritated today? It’s really ludicrous; her
object is doing good; she a Christian, yet she’s always
angry; and she always has enemies, and always enemies in
the name of Christianity and doing good.’
After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the
wife of a chief secretary, who told her all the news of the

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