Page 153 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

everything’ (she waved her hand before her forehead),
‘that faculty for being completely carried away, but for
completely repenting too. He cannot believe it, he cannot
comprehend now how he can have acted as he did.’

‘No; he understands, he understood!’ Dolly broke in.
‘But I...you are forgetting me...does it make it easier for
me?’
‘Wait a minute. When he told me, I will own I did not
realize all the awfulness of your position. I saw nothing
but him, and that the family was broken up. I felt sorry for
him, but after talking to you, I see it, as a woman, quite
differently. I see your agony, and I can’t tell you how
sorry I am for you! But, Dolly, darling, I fully realize your
sufferings, only there is one thing I don’t know; I don’t
know...I don’t know how much love there is still in your
heart for him. That you know—whether there is enough
for you to be able to forgive him. If there is, forgive him!’
‘No,’ Dolly was beginning, but Anna cut her short,
kissing her hand once more.
‘I know more of the world than you do,’ she said. ‘I
know how met like Stiva look at it. You speak of his
talking of you with her. That never happened. Such men
are unfaithful, but their home and wife are sacred to them.
Somehow or other these women are still looked on with

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