Page 1101 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

forgotten to pay, and announced that the clerk from the
shop was waiting, Alexey Alexandrovitch told him to
show the clerk up.
‘Excuse me, your excellency, for venturing to trouble

you. But if you direct us to apply to her excellency, would
you graciously oblige us with her address?’
Alexey Alexandrovitch pondered, as it seemed to the
clerk, and all at once, turning round, he sat down at the
table. Letting his head sink into his hands, he sat for a long
while in that position, several times attempted to speak
and stopped short. Korney, perceiving his master’s
emotion, asked the clerk to call another time. Left alone,
Alexey Alexandrovitch recognized that he had not the
strength to keep up the line of firmness and composure
any longer. He gave orders for the carriage that was
awaiting him to be taken back, and for no one to be
admitted, and he did not go down to dinner.
He felt that he could not endure the weight of
universal contempt and exasperation, which he had
distinctly seen in the face of the clerk and of Korney, and
of everyone, without exception, whom he had met during
those two days. He felt that he could not turn aside from
himself the hatred of men, because that hatred did not
come from his being bad (in that case he could have tried

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