Soon after the doctor, Dolly had arrived. She knew that there
was to be a consultation that day, and though she was only just
up after her confinement (she had another baby, a little girl,
born at the end of the winter), though she had trouble and
anxiety enough of her own, she had left her tiny baby and a sick
child, to come and hear Kitty's fate, which was to be decided
that day.
"Well, well?" she said, coming into the drawing room, without
taking off her hat. "You're all in good spirits. Good news,
then?"
They tried to tell her what the doctor had said, but it appeared
that though the doctor had talked distinctly enough and at great
length, it was utterly impossible to report what he had said.
The only point of interest was that it was settled they should go
abroad.
Dolly could not help sighing. Her dearest friend, her sister,
was going away. And her life was not a cheerful one. Her
relations with Stepan Arkadyevitch after their reconciliation had
become humiliating. The union Anna had cemented turned out to be
of no solid character, and family harmony was breaking down again
at the same point. There had been nothing definite, but Stepan
Arkadyevitch was hardly ever at home; money, too, was hardly ever
forthcoming, and Dolly was continually tortured by suspicions of
infidelity, which she tried to dismiss, dreading the agonies of
jealousy she had been through already. The first onslaught of
jealousy, once lived through, could never come back again, and
even the discovery of infidelities could never now affect her as
it had the first time. Such a discovery now would only mean
breaking up family habits, and she let herself be deceived,
despising him and still more herself, for the weakness. Besides
this, the care of her large family was a constant worry to her:
first, the nursing of her young baby did not go well, then the
nurse had gone away, now one of the children had fallen ill.
"Well, how are all of you?" asked her mother.
"Ah, mamma, we have plenty of troubles of our own. Lili is ill,
and I'm afraid it's scarlatina. I have come here now to hear
about Kitty, and then I shall shut myself up entirely, if--God
forbid--it should be scarlatina."
The old prince too had come in from his study after the doctor's
departure, and after presenting his cheek to Dolly, and saying a
few words to her, he turned to his wife: "How have you settled it? you're going? Well, and what do you
mean to do with me?"