Page 1440 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

And though she felt sure that a coldness was beginning,
there was nothing she could do, she could not in any way
alter her relations to him. Just as before, only by love and
by charm could she keep him. And so, just as before, only

by occupation in the day, by morphine at night, could she
stifle the fearful thought of what would be if he ceased to
love her. It is true there was still one means; not to keep
him—for that she wanted nothing more than his love—
but to be nearer to him, to be in such a position that he
would not leave her. That means was divorce and
marriage. And she began to long for that, and made up her
mind to agree to it the first time he or Stiva approached
her on the subject.
Absorbed in such thoughts, she passed five days
without him, the five days that he was to be at the
elections.
Walks, conversation with Princess Varvara, visits to the
hospital, and, most of all, reading—reading of one book
after another—filled up her time. But on the sixth day,
when the coachman came back without him, she felt that
now she was utterly incapable of stifling the thought of
him and of what he was doing there, just at that time her
little girl was taken ill. Anna began to look after her, but
even that did not distract her mind, especially as the illness

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