Page 1508 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

you’re not a public-spirited citizen, and I have defended
you to the best of my ability.’
‘How have you defended me?’
‘Oh, according to the attacks made on you. But won’t

you have some tea?’ She rose and took up a book bound
in morocco.
‘Give it to me, Anna Arkadyevna,’ said Vorkuev,
indicating the book. ‘It’s well worth taking up.’
‘Oh, no, it’s all so sketchy.’
‘I told him about it,’ Stepan Arkadyevitch said to his
sister, nodding at Levin.
‘You shouldn’t have. My writing is something after the
fashion of those little baskets and carving which Liza
Mertsalova used to sell me from the prisons. She had the
direction of the prison department in that society,’ she
turned to Levin; ‘and they were miracles of patience, the
work of those poor wretches.’
And Levin saw a new trait in this woman, who
attracted him so extraordinarily. Besides wit, grace, and
beauty, she had truth. She had no wish to hide from him
all the bitterness of her position. As she said that she
sighed, and her face suddenly taking a hard expression,
looked as it were turned to stone. With that expression on
her face she was more beautiful than ever; but the

1507 of 1759