LISA. Since that day everything has changed in me.

KARÉNIN. And will not change again?

LISA. Never! I only wish you to have done with it all as completely as I

have.

Enter nurse, with baby. Lisa takes the baby on her lap.

KARÉNIN. What wretched people we are!

LISA [kissing baby] Why?

KARÉNIN. When you married, and I heard of it on my return from abroad,

and was wretched because I felt that I had lost you, it was a relief to

me to find that you still remembered me. I was content even with that.

Then when our friendship was established and I felt your kindness to me,

and even a little gleam of something in our friendship that was more

than friendship, I was almost happy. I was only tormented by a fear that

I was not being honest towards Fédya. But no! I was always so firmly

conscious that any other relation than one of purest friendship with my

friend's wife was impossible--besides which, I knew you--that I was not

really troubled about that. Afterwards, when Fédya began to cause you

anxiety, and I felt that I was of some use to you, and that my

friendship was beginning to alarm you--I was quite happy, and a sort of

vague hope awoke in me. Still later, when he became altogether

The Live Corpse