Page 1049 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

himself. He could do nothing but try to help the aching
place to bear it, and this he tried to do.
They made peace. She, recognizing that she was
wrong, though she did not say so, became tenderer to

him, and they experienced new, redoubled happiness in
their love. But that did not prevent such quarrels from
happening again, and exceedingly often too, on the most
unexpected and trivial grounds. These quarrels frequently
arose from the fact that they did not yet know what was of
importance to each other and that all this early period they
were both often in a bad temper. When one was in a good
temper, and the other in a bad temper, the peace was not
broken; but when both happened to be in an ill-humor,
quarrels sprang up from such incomprehensibly trifling
causes, that they could never remember afterwards what
they had quarreled about. It is true that when they were
both in a good temper their enjoyment of life was
redoubled. But still this first period of their married life
was a difficult time for them.
During all this early time they had a peculiarly vivid
sense of tension, as it were, a tugging in opposite
directions of the chain by which they were bound.
Altogether their honeymoon—that is to say, the month
after their wedding—from which from tradition Levin

1048 of 1759