Page 1378 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘I shall not, because I don’t wish it.’ And, in spite of all
her emotion, Anna smiled, as she caught the naive
expression of curiosity, wonder, and horror on Dolly’s
face.

‘The doctor told me after my illness..’
‘Impossible!’ said Dolly, opening her eyes wide.
For her this was one of those discoveries the
consequences and deductions from which are so immense
that all that one feels for the first instant is that it is
impossible to take it all in, and that one will have to reflect
a great, great deal upon it.
This discovery, suddenly throwing light on all those
families of one or two children, which had hitherto been
so incomprehensible to her, aroused so many ideas,
reflections, and contradictory emotions, that she had
nothing to say, and simply gazed with wide-open eyes of
wonder at Anna. This was the very thing she had been
dreaming of, but now learning that it was possible, she was
horrified. She felt that it was too simple a solution of too
complicated a problem.
‘N’est-ce pas immoral?’ was all she said, after a brief
pause.
‘Why so? Think, I have a choice between two
alternatives: either to be with child, that is an invalid, or to

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