Page 1715 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

for and what is good. I and all men have only one firm,
incontestable, clear knowledge, and that knowledge
cannot be explained by the reason—it is outside it, and has
no causes and can have no effects.

‘If goodness has causes, it is not goodness; if it has
effects, a reward, it is not goodness either. So goodness is
outside the chain of cause and effect.
‘And yet I know it, and we all know it.
‘What could be a greater miracle than that?
‘Can I have found the solution of it all? can my
sufferings be over?’ thought Levin, striding along the dusty
road, not noticing the heat nor his weariness, and
experiencing a sense of relief from prolonged suffering.
This feeling was so delicious that it seemed to him
incredible. He was breathless with emotion and incapable
of going farther; he turned off the road into the forest and
lay down in the shade of an aspen on the uncut grass. He
took his hat off his hot head and lay propped on his elbow
in the lush, feathery, woodland grass.
‘Yes, I must make it clear to myself and understand,’ he
thought, looking intently at the untrampled grass before
him, and following the movements of a green beetle,
advancing along a blade of couch-grass and lifting up in its
progress a leaf of goat-weed. ‘What have I discovered?’ he

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