Page 1215 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

being too happy, and above all from his unflagging craving
to be better—she loved it in him, and so she smiled.
‘And you? What are you dissatisfied with?’ she asked,
with the same smile.

Her disbelief in his self-dissatisfaction delighted him,
and unconsciously he tried to draw her into giving
utterance to the grounds of her disbelief.
‘I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself...’ he said.
‘Why, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself if you
are happy?’
‘Well, how shall I say?... In my heart I really care for
nothing whatever but that you should not stumble—see?
Oh, but really you mustn’t skip about like that!’ he cried,
breaking off to scold her for too agile a movement in
stepping over a branch that lay in the path. ‘But when I
think about myself, and compare myself with others,
especially with my brother, I feel I’m a poor creature.’
‘But in what way?’ Kitty pursued with the same smile.
‘Don’t you too work for others? What about your co-
operative settlement, and your work on the estate, and
your book?..’
‘Oh, but I feel, and particularly just now—it’s your
fault,’ he said, pressing her hand—‘that all that doesn’t
count. I do it in a way halfheartedly. If I could care for all

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