Page 1619 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Now nothing mattered: going or not going to
Vozdvizhenskoe, getting or not getting a divorce from her
husband—all that did not matter. The one thing that
mattered was punishing him. When she poured herself out

her usual dose of opium, and thought that she had only to
drink off the whole bottle to die, it seemed to her so
simple and easy, that she began musing with enjoyment on
how he would suffer, and repent and love her memory
when it would be too late. She lay in bed with open eyes,
by the light of a single burned-down candle, gazing at the
carved cornice of the ceiling and at the shadow of the
screen that covered part of it, while she vividly pictured to
herself how he would feel when she would be no more,
when she would be only a memory to him. ‘How could I
say such cruel things to her?’ he would say. ‘How could I
go out of the room without saying anything to her? But
now she is no more. She has gone away from us forever.
She is....’ Suddenly the shadow of the screen wavered,
pounced on the whole cornice, the whole ceiling; other
shadows from the other side swooped to meet it, for an
instant the shadows flitted back, but then with fresh
swiftness they darted forward, wavered, commingled, and
all was darkness. ‘Death!’ she thought. And such horror
came upon her that for a long while she could not realize

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