Page 1008 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 8

Anna, in that first period of her emancipation and rapid
return to health, felt herself unpardonably happy and full
of the joy of life. The thought of her husband’s
unhappiness did not poison her happiness. On one side
that memory was too awful to be thought of. On the
other side her husband’s unhappiness had given her too
much happiness to be regretted. The memory of all that
had happened after her illness: her reconciliation with her
husband, its breakdown, the news of Vronsky’s wound, his
visit, the preparations for divorce, the departure from her
husband’s house, the parting from her son—all that
seemed to her like a delirious dream, from which she had
waked up alone with Vronsky abroad. The thought of the
harm caused to her husband aroused in her a feeling like
repulsion, and akin to what a drowning man might feel
who has shaken off another man clinging to him. That
man did drown. It was an evil action, of course, but it was
the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over
these fearful facts.
One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had
occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture,

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