Page 1244 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

crossed over after her to the other end of the table; but she
dared not own it even to herself, and would have been
even more unable to bring herself to say so to him, and so
increase his suffering.

‘And what can there possibly be attractive about me as I
am now?..’
‘Ah!’ he cried, clutching at his head, ‘you shouldn’t say
that!... If you had been attractive then..’
‘Oh, no, Kostya, oh, wait a minute, oh, do listen!’ she
said, looking at him with an expression of pained
commiseration. ‘Why, what can you be thinking about!
When for me there’s no one in the world, no one, no
one!... Would you like me never to see anyone?’
For the first minute she had been offended at his
jealousy; she was angry that the slightest amusement, even
the most innocent, should be forbidden her; but now she
would readily have sacrificed, not merely such trifles, but
everything, for his peace of mind, to save him from the
agony he was suffering.
‘You must understand the horror and comedy of my
position,’ he went on in a desperate whisper; ‘that he’s in
my house, that he’s done nothing improper positively
except his free and easy airs and the way he sits on his legs.

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