Anna Karenina - Part 5

"Yes, perhaps.... As for me, I do my duty. It's all I can

do."

"You're coming to me," said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a

pause; "we have to speak of a subject painful for you. I would

give anything to have spared you certain memories, but others

are not of the same mind. I have received a letter from _her_.

_She_ is here in Petersburg."

Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered at the allusion to his wife, but

immediately his face assumed the deathlike rigidity which

expressed utter helplessness in the matter.

"I was expecting it," he said.

Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears of

rapture at the greatness of his soul came into her eyes.