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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.