Catching a sound of skirts and light steps at the door, she

looked round, and her care-worn face unconsciously expressed not

gladness, but wonder. She got up and embraced her 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

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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."




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