Page 1132 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

other man’s child made his heart burn with shame and
remorse.
And just the same feeling of shame and regret he felt
now, as he reviewed all his past with her, recalling the

awkward words in which, after long wavering, he had
made her an offer.
‘But how have I been to blame?’ he said to himself.
And this question always excited another question in
him—whether they felt differently, did their loving and
marrying differently, these Vronskys and Oblonskys...these
gentlemen of the bedchamber, with their fine calves. And
there passed before his mind a whole series of these
mettlesome, vigorous, self- confident men, who always
and everywhere drew his inquisitive attention in spite of
himself. He tried to dispel these thoughts, he tried to
persuade himself that he was not living for this transient
life, but for the life of eternity, and that there was peace
and love in his heart.
But the fact that he had in this transient, trivial life
made, as it seemed to him, a few trivial mistakes tortured
him as though the eternal salvation in which he believed
had no existence. But this temptation did not last long,
and soon there was reestablished once more in Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s soul the peace and the elevation by

1131 of 1759