第158页 / 共2288页

"Well, well, we won't talk of it," the princess stopped him,

recollecting her unlucky Dolly.

"By all means, and good-night!"

And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife

parted with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of their own

opinion.

The princess had at first been quite certain that that evening

had settled Kitty's future, and that there could be no doubt of

Vronsky's intentions, but her husband's words had disturbed her.

And returning to her own room, in terror before the unknown

future, she, too, like Kitty, repeated several times in her

heart, "Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity; Lord, have pity."

Chapter 16

Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in

her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her

married life, and still more afterwards, many love affairs

notorious in the whole fashionable world. His father he scarcely

remembered, and he had been educated in the Corps of Pages.