And her life was not a cheerful one.

Her relations with Stepan Arkadyevitch after their reconciliation had become humiliating.

The union Anna had cemented turned out to be of no solid character, and family harmony was breaking down again at the same point.

There had been nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyevitch was hardly ever at home; money, too, was hardly ever forthcoming, and Dolly was continually tortured by suspicions of infidelity, which she tried to dismiss, dreading the agonies of jealousy she had been through already.