Anna Karenina - Part 5

Alexey Alexandrovitch had forgotten the Countess Lidia Ivanovna,

but she had not forgotten him. At the bitterest moment of his

lonely despair she came to him, and without waiting to be

announced, walked straight into his study. She found him as he

was sitting with his head in both hands.

"_J'ai forcé la consigne_," she said, walking in with rapid steps

and breathing hard with excitement and rapid exercise. "I have

heard all! Alexey Alexandrovitch! Dear friend!" she went on,

warmly squeezing his hand in both of hers and gazing with her

fine pensive eyes into his.

Alexey Alexandrovitch, frowning, got up, and disengaging his

hand, moved her a chair.

"Won't you sit down, countess? I'm seeing no one because I'm

unwell, countess," he said, and his lips twitched.

"Dear friend!" repeated Countess Lidia Ivanovna, never taking her

eyes off his, and suddenly her eyebrows rose at the inner

corners, describing a triangle on her forehead, her ugly yellow

face became still uglier, but Alexey Alexandrovitch felt that she

was sorry for him and was preparing to cry. And he too was

softened; he snatched her plump hand and proceeded to kiss it.

"Dear friend!" she said in a voice breaking with emotion. "You

ought not to give way to grief. Your sorrow is a great one, but

you ought to find consolation."

"I am crushed, I am annihilated, I am no longer a man!" said

Alexey Alexandrovitch, letting go her hand, but still gazing into

her brimming eyes. "My position is so awful because I can find

nowhere, I cannot find within me strength to support me."

"You will find support; seek it--not in me, though I beseech you

to believe in my friendship," she said, with a sigh. "Our

support is love, that love that He has vouchsafed us. His burden

is light," she said, with the look of ecstasy Alexey

Alexandrovitch knew so well. "He will be your support and your

succor."

Although there was in these words a flavor of that sentimental

emotion at her own lofty feelings, and that new mystical fervor

which had lately gained ground in Petersburg, and which seemed to

Alexey Alexandrovitch disproportionate, still it was pleasant to

him to hear this now.

"I am weak. I am crushed. I foresaw nothing, and now I

understand nothing."

"Dear friend," repeated Lidia Ivanovna.

"It's not the loss of what I have not now, it's not that!"

pursued Alexey Alexandrovitch. "I do not grieve for that. But

I cannot help feeling humiliated before other people for the

position I am placed in. It is wrong, but I can't help it, I

can't help it."