Pity Without Repair — Anna Karenina

Dolly stands at an open bureau for the tenth time in three days, sorting children's things she cannot bring herself to carry away. She tells herself things cannot go on like this, that she must punish him, yet she already knows leaving is impossible: she still loves Stiva, and five children will eat worse wherever she goes. The baby is sick from bad soup; yesterday they nearly missed dinner. She keeps pretending she is going anyway.

When he walks in radiant and fresh, she asks what he wants in a voice that is not her own. He mentions Anna; she tells him to go away. He sobs, begs forgiveness, and offers the line that detonates everything: cannot nine years of her life atone for an instant? At the word passion her face stiffens again. She hears pity where she needs love, calls him loathsome, and says the word that terrifies her most: stranger. A child cries in the next room; her face softens for a second, then she threatens to call the servants, calls him a scoundrel, and slams the door.

Stiva wipes his tears, hears the German watchmaker winding the clock, smiles at an old joke, and tells himself she will come round. Dolly alone repeats that even under one roof they are strangers forever, then Matrona asks about milk and a new cook, and she plunges into dinner plans because the household cannot wait for her grief to finish.

His tears already relieved him. Her pain still has to feed five children.