Before Betsy had time to walk out of the drawing-room, she was

met in the doorway by Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just come from

Yeliseev's, where a consignment of fresh oysters had been

received.

"Ah! princess! what a delightful meeting!" he began. "I've been

to see you."

"A meeting for one minute, for I'm going," said Betsy, smiling

and putting on her glove.

"Don't put on your glove yet, princess; let me kiss your hand.

There's nothing I'm so thankful to the revival of the old

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fashions for as the kissing the hand." He kissed Betsy's hand.

"When shall we see each other?"

"You don't deserve it," answered Betsy, smiling.

"Oh, yes, I deserve a great deal, for I've become a most serious

person. I don't only manage my own affairs, but other people's

too," he said, with a significant expression.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" answered Betsy, at once understanding that he

was speaking of Anna. And going back into the drawing room, they

stood in a corner. "He's killing her," said Betsy in a whisper

full of meaning. "It's impossible, impossible..."

"I'm so glad you think so," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, shaking his

head with a serious and sympathetically distressed expression,

"that's what I've come to Petersburg for."

"The whole town's talking of it," she said. "It's an impossible

position. She pines and pines away. He doesn't understand that

she's one of those women who can't trifle with their feelings.

One of two things: either let him take her away, act with

energy, or give her a divorce. This is stifling her."

"Yes, yes...just so..." Oblonsky said, sighing. "That's what

I've come for. At least not solely for that...I've been made a

_Kammerherr_; of course, one has to say thank you. But the chief

thing was having to settle this."

"Well, God help you!" said Betsy.

After accompanying Betsy to the outside hall, once more kissing

her hand above the glove, at the point where the pulse beats, and

murmuring to her such unseemly nonsense that she did not know

whether to laugh or be angry, Stepan Arkadyevitch went to his

sister. He found her in tears.

Although he happened to be bubbling over with good spirits,

Stepan Arkadyevitch immediately and quite naturally fell into the

sympathetic, poetically emotional tone which harmonized with her

mood. He asked her how she was, and how she had spent the

morning.

"Very, very miserably. Today and this morning and all past days

and days to come," she said.




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