Page 1357 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

working here, settled in my own place, and I am happy
and contented, and we need nothing more to make us
happy. I love my work here. Ce n’est pas un pis-aller, on
the contrary..’

Darya Alexandrovna noticed that at this point in his
explanation he grew confused, and she did not quite
understand this digression, but she felt that having once
begun to speak of matters near his heart, of which he
could not speak to Anna, he was now making a clean
breast of everything, and that the question of his pursuits
in the country fell into the same category of matters near
his heart, as the question of his relations with Anna.
‘Well, I will go on,’ he said, collecting himself. ‘The
great thing is that as I work I want to have a conviction
that what I am doing will not die with me, that I shall
have heirs to come after me,—and this I have not.
Conceive the position of a man who knows that his
children, the children of the woman he loves, will not be
his, but will belong to someone who hates them and cares
nothing about them! It is awful!’
He paused, evidently much moved.
‘Yes, indeed, I see that. But what can Anna do?’
queried Darya Alexandrovna.

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