Page 1610 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘No,’ she said, irritated by his so obviously showing by
this change of subject that he was irritated, ‘why did you
suppose that this news would affect me so, that you must
even try to hide it? I said I don’t want to consider it, and I

should have liked you to care as little about it as I do.’
‘I care about it because I like definiteness,’ he said.
‘Definiteness is not in the form but the love,’ she said,
more and more irritated, not by his words, but by the tone
of cool composure in which he spoke. ‘What do you want
it for?’
‘My God! love again,’ he thought, frowning.
‘Oh, you know what for; for your sake and your
children’s in the future.’
‘There won’t be children in the future.’
‘That’s a great pity,’ he said.
‘You want it for the children’s sake, but you don’t
think of me?’ she said, quite forgetting or not having heard
that he had said, ‘for your sake and the children’s.’
The question of the possibility of having children had
long been a subject of dispute and irritation to her. His
desire to have children she interpreted as a proof he did
not prize her beauty.
‘Oh, I said: for your sake. Above all for your sake,’ he
repeated, frowning as though in pain, ‘because I am

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