Page 806 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

honor to apply to me in order to learn its application in
practice. And therefore, guided by precedents, I must
inform you that in practice cases of divorce may all be
reduced to the following— there’s no physical defect, I

may assume, nor desertion?..’
Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed his head in assent.
‘—May be reduced to the following: adultery of one of
the married parties, and the detection in the fact of the
guilty party by mutual agreement, and failing such
agreement, accidental detection. It must be admitted that
the latter case is rarely met with in practice,’ said the
lawyer, and stealing a glance at Alexey Alexandrovitch he
paused, as a man selling pistols, after enlarging on the
advantages of each weapon, might await his customer’s
choice. But Alexey Alexandrovitch said nothing, and
therefore the lawyer went on: ‘The most usual and simple,
the sensible course, I consider, is adultery by mutual
consent. I should not permit myself to express it so,
speaking with a man of no education,’ he said, ‘but I
imagine that to you this is comprehensible.’
Alexey Alexandrovitch was, however, so perturbed that
he did not immediately comprehend all the good sense of
adultery by mutual consent, and his eyes expressed this

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