Page 1213 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘That was when I was a child; I know about it from
hearsay and tradition. I remember him then. He was
wonderfully sweet. But I’ve watched him since with
women; he is friendly, some of them he likes, but one

feels that to him they’re simply people, not women.’
‘Yes, but now with Varenka...I fancy there’s
something..’
‘Perhaps there is.... But one has to know him.... He’s a
peculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life only.
He’s too pure, too exalted a nature.’
‘Why? Would this lower him, then?’
‘No, but he’s so used to a spiritual life that he can’t
reconcile himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all
fact.’
Levin had grown used by now to uttering his thought
boldly, without taking the trouble of clothing it in exact
language. He knew that his wife, in such moments of
loving tenderness as now, would understand what he
meant to say from a hint, and she did understand him.
‘Yes, but there’s not so much of that actual fact about
her as about me. I can see that he would never have cared
for me. She is altogether spiritual.’
‘Oh, no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad
when my people like you...’

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