Page 126 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and
the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the
tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his
mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite

character, that it is courting young girls with no intention
of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil
actions common among brilliant young men such as he
was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had
discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his
discovery.
If he could have heard what her parents were saying
that evening, if he could have put himself at the point ov
view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be
unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been
greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He
could not believe that what gave such great and delicate
pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still
less could he have believed that he ought to marry.
Marriage had never presented itself to him as a
possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family,
and especially a husband was, in accordance with the
views general in the bachelor world in which he lived,
conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all,
ridiculous.

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