Page 1243 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Levin hearing these voices sat scowling in an easy-chair
in his wife’s bedroom, and maintained an obstinate silence
when she asked him what was wrong. But when at last
with a timid glance she hazarded the question: ‘Was there

perhaps something you disliked about Veslovsky?’—it all
burst out, and he told her all. He was humiliated himself at
what he was saying, and that exasperated him all the more.
He stood facing her with his eyes glittering menacingly
under his scowling brows, and he squeezed his strong arms
across his chest, as though he were straining every nerve to
hold himself in. The expression of his face would have
been grim, and even cruel, if it had not at the same time
had a look of suffering which touched her. His jaws were
twitching, and his voice kept breaking.
‘You must understand that I’m not jealous, that’s a
nasty word. I can’t be jealous, and believe that.... I can’t
say what I feel, but this is awful.... I’m not jealous, but I’m
wounded, humiliated that anybody dare think, that
anybody dare look at you with eyes like that.’
‘Eyes like what?’ said Kitty, trying as conscientiously as
possible to recall every word and gesture of that evening
and every shade implied in them.
At the very bottom of her heart she did think there had
been something precisely at the moment when he had

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