(which did not sound a propos), “but simply as a man, and a good-hearted man and a Christian. You must have pity on her,” he said.

“That is, in what way precisely?” Karenin said softly.

“Yes, pity on her. If you had seen her as I have! — I have been spending all the winter with her — you would have pity on her. Her position is awful, simply awful!”

“I had imagined,” answered Alexey Alexandrovitch in a higher, almost shrill voice, “that Anna Arkadyevna had everything she had desired for herself.”

“Oh, Alexey Alexandrovitch, for heaven’s sake, don’t let us indulge in recriminations! What is past is past, and you know what she wants and is waiting for — divorce.”