Page 1083 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Do you suppose he can possibly recover?’ said Levin,
watching a slender tress at the back of her round little head
that was continually hidden when she passed the comb
through the front.

‘I asked the doctor; he said he couldn’t live more than
three days. But can they be sure? I’m very glad, anyway,
that I persuaded him,’ she said, looking askance at her
husband through her hair. ‘Anything is possible,’ she
added with that peculiar, rather sly expression that was
always in her face when she spoke of religion.
Since their conversation about religion when they were
engaged neither of them had ever started a discussion of
the subject, but she performed all the ceremonies of going
to church, saying her prayers, and so on, always with the
unvarying conviction that this ought to be so. In spite of
his assertion to the contrary, she was firmly persuaded that
he was as much a Christian as she, and indeed a far better
one; and all that he said about it was simply one of his
absurd masculine freaks, just as he would say about her
broderie anglaise that good people patch holes, but that
she cut them on purpose, and so on.
‘Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not
know how to manage all this,’ said Levin. ‘And...I must
own I’m very, very glad you came. You are such purity

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