Page 803 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

about which I have to speak to you is to be strictly
private.’
The lawyer’s overhanging reddish mustaches were
parted in a scarcely perceptible smile.

‘I should not be a lawyer if I could not keep the secrets
confided to me. But if you would like proof..’
Alexey Alexandrovitch glanced at his face, and saw that
the shrewd, gray eyes were laughing, and seemed to know
all about it already.
‘You know my name?’ Alexey Alexandrovitch
resumed.
‘I know you and the good’—again he caught a moth—
‘work you are doing, like every Russian,’ said the lawyer,
bowing.
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, plucking up his courage.
But having once made up his mind he went on in his shrill
voice, without timidity—or hesitation, accentuating here
and there a word.
‘I have the misfortune,’ Alexey Alexandrovitch began,
‘to have been deceived in my married life, and I desire to
break off all relations with my wife by legal means—that
is, to be divorced, but to do this so that my son may not
remain with his mother.’

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