Pagina 307 de 2288

"It was all the same before, of course; but why was it I didn't

notice it before?" Anna asked herself. "Or has she been very much

irritated today? It's really ludicrous; her object is doing good;

she a Christian, yet she's always angry; and she always has

enemies, and always enemies in the name of Christianity and doing

good."

After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the wife of a

chief secretary, who told her all the news of the town. At three

o'clock she too went away, promising to come to dinner. Alexey

Alexandrovitch was at the ministry. Anna, left alone, spent the

time till dinner in assisting at her son's dinner (he dined apart

from his parents) and in putting her things in order, and in

reading and answering the notes and letters which had accumulated

on her table.

The feeling of causeless shame, which she had felt on the

journey, and her excitement, too, had completely vanished. In the

habitual conditions of her life she felt again resolute and

irreproachable.