xey Alexandrovitch consented, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna
sent the following letter in French:

"Dear Madame,

"To be reminded of you might have results for your son in leading
to questions on his part which could not be answered without
implanting in the child's soul a spirit of censure towards what
should be for him sacred, and therefore I beg you to interpret
your husband's refusal in the spirit of Christian love. I pray
to Almighty God to have mercy on you.
Countess Lidia"

This letter attained the secret object which Countess Lidia
Ivanovna had concealed from herself. It wounded Anna to the
quick.

For his part, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on returning home from Lidia
Ivanovna's, could not all that day concentrate himself on his
usual pursuits, and find that spiritual peace of one saved and
believing which he had felt of late.

The thought of his wife, who had so greatly sinned against him,
and towards whom he had been so saintly, as Countess Lidia
Ivanovna had so justly told him, ought not to have troubled him;
but he was not easy; he could not understand the book he was
reading; he could not drive away harassing recollections of his
relations with her, of the mistake which, as it now seemed, he
had made in regard to her. The memory of how he had received her
confession of infidelity on their way home from the races
(especially that he had insisted only on the observance of
external decorum, and had not sent a challenge) tortured him like
a remorse. He was tortured too by the thought of the letter he
had written her; and most of all, his forgiveness, which nobody
wanted, and his care of the other man's child made his heart burn
with shame and remorse.

And just the same feeling of shame and regret he felt now, as he
reviewed all his past with her, recalling the awkward words in
which, after long wavering, he had made her an offer.

"But how have I been to blame?" he said to himself. And this
question always excited another question in him--whether they
felt differently, did their loving and marrying differently,
these Vronskys and Oblonskys...these gentlemen of the
bedchamber, with their fine calves. And there passed before his
mind a whole series of these mettlesome, vigorous, self-
confident men, who always and everywhere drew his inquisitive
attention in spite of himself. He tried to dispel these
thoughts, he tried to persuade himself that he was not living for
thi