Page 1449 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

inwardly reproached him for his inability to live in the
town; sometimes she recognized that it was really hard for
him to order his life here so that he could be satisfied with.
What had he to do, indeed? He did not care for cards;

he did not go to a club. Spending the time with jovial
gentlemen of Oblonsky’s type—she knew now what that
meant...it meant drinking and going somewhere after
drinking. She could not think without horror of where
men went on such occasions. Was he to go into society?
But she knew he could only find satisfaction in that if he
took pleasure in the society of young women, and that she
could not wish for. Should he stay at home with her, her
mother and her sisters? But much as she liked and enjoyed
their conversations forever on the same subjects—‘Aline-
Nadine,’ as the old prince called the sisters’ talks—she
knew it must bore him. What was there left for him to
do? To go on writing at his book he had indeed
attempted, and at first he used to go to the library and
make extracts and look up references for his book. But, as
he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time he had
to do anything. And besides, he complained that he had
talked too much about his book here, and that
consequently all his ideas about it were muddled and had
lost their interest for him.

1448 of 1759