Page 1714 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Didn’t I understand those senseless words of Fyodor’s?
And understanding them, did I doubt of their truth? Did I
think them stupid, obscure, inexact? No, I understood
him, and exactly as he understands the words. I

understood them more fully and clearly than I understand
anything in life, and never in my life have I doubted nor
can I doubt about it. And not only I, but everyone, the
whole world understands nothing fully but this, and about
this only they have no doubt and are always agreed.
‘And I looked out for miracles, complained that I did
not see a miracle which would convince me. A material
miracle would have persuaded me. And here is a miracle,
the sole miracle possible, continually existing, surrounding
me on all sides, and I never noticed it!
‘Fyodor says that Kirillov lives for his belly. That’s
comprehensible and rational. All of us as rational beings
can’t do anything else but live for our belly. And all of a
sudden the same Fyodor says that one mustn’t live for
one’s belly, but must live for truth, for God, and at a hint I
understand him! And I and millions of men, men who
lived ages ago and men living now— peasants, the poor in
spirit and the learned, who have thought and written
about it, in their obscure words saying the same thing—
we are all agreed about this one thing: what we must live

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