Part 1 - Chapter 19 - Page 2

sister-in-law.

"What, here already!" she said as she kissed her.

"Dolly, how glad I am to see you!"

"I am glad, too," said Dolly, faintly smiling, and trying by the
expression of Anna's face to find out whether she knew. "Most
likely she knows," she thought, noticing the sympathy in Anna's
face. "Well, come along, I'll take you to your room," she went
on, trying to defer as long as possible the moment of
confidences.

"Is this Grisha? Heavens, how he's grown!" said Anna; and
kissing him, never taking her eyes off Dolly, she stood still and
flushed a little. "No, please, let us stay here."

She took off her kerchief and her hat, and catching it in a lock
of her black hair, which was a mass of curls, she tossed her head
and shook her hair down.

"You are radiant with health and happiness!" said Dolly, almost
with envy.

"I?.... Yes," said Anna. "Merciful heavens, Tanya! You're the
same age as my Seryozha," she added, addressing the little girl
as she ran in. She took her in her arms and kissed her.
"Delightful child, delightful! Show me them all."

She mentioned them, not only remembering the names, but the
years, months, characters, illnesses of all the children, and
Dolly could not but appreciate that.

"Very well, we will go to them," she said. "It's a pity Vassya's
asleep."

After seeing the children, They sat down, alone now, in the
drawing room, to coffee. Anna took the tray, and then pushed it
away from her.

"Dolly," she said, "he has told me."

Dolly looked coldly at Anna; she was waiting now for phrases of
conventional sympathy, but Anna said nothing of the sort.

"Dolly, dear," she said, "I don't want to speak for him to you,
nor to try to comfort you; that's impossible. But, darling, I'm
simply sorry, sorry from my heart for you!"

Under the thick lashes of her shining eyes tears suddenly
glittered. She moved nearer to her sister-in-law and took her
hand in her vigorous little hand. Dolly did not shrink away, but
her face did not lose its frigid expression. She said:

"To comfort me's impossible. Everything's lost after what has
happened, everything's over!"

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