"What is the difficulty?" said Levin.

"Oh, it's a long and tedious story! The whole business is in
such an anomalous position with us. But the point is she has
been for three months in Moscow, where everyone knows her,
waiting for the divorce; she goes out nowhere, sees no woman
except Dolly, because, do you understand, she doesn't care to
have people come as a favor. That fool Princess Varvara, even
she has left her, considering this a breach of propriety. Well,
you see, in such a position any other woman would not have found
resources in herself. But you'll see how she has arranged her
life--how calm, how dignified she is. To the left, in the
crescent opposite the church!" shouted Stepan Arkadyevitch,
leaning out of the window. "Phew! how hot it is!" he said, in
spite of twelve degrees of frost, flinging his open overcoat
still wider open.

"But she has a daughter: no doubt she's busy looking after her?"
said Levin.

"I believe you picture every woman simply as a female, _une
couveuse,_" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "If she's occupied, it
must be with her children. No, she brings her up capitally, I
believe, but one doesn't hear about her. She's busy, in the
first place, with what she writes. I see you're smiling
ironically, but you're wrong. She's writing a children's book,
and doesn't talk about it to anyone, but she read it to me and I
gave the manuscript to Vorkuev...you know the publisher...and
he's an author himself too, I fancy. He understands those
things, and he says it's a remarkable piece of work. But are you
fancying she's an authoress?--not a bit of it. She's a woman
with a heart, before everything, but you'll see. Now she has a
little English girl with her, and a whole family she's looking
after."