Page 184 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 184

Anna Karenina




                                                        Chapter 24


                                     ‘Yes, there is something in be hatful, repulsive,’
                                  thought Levin, as he came away from the Shtcherbatskys’,
                                  and walked in the direction of his brother’s lodgings. ‘And
                                  I don’t get on with other people. Pride, they say. No, I
                                  have no pride. If I had any pride, I should not have put
                                  myself in such a position.’ And he pictured to himself
                                  Vronsky, happy, good-natured, clever, and self-possessed,
                                  certainly never placed in the awful position in which he
                                  had been that evening. ‘Yes, she was bound to choose
                                  him. So it had to be, and I cannot complain of anyone or
                                  anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to
                                  imagine she would care to join her life to mine? Whom
                                  am I and what am I? A nobody, not wanted by any one,
                                  nor of use to anybody.’ And he recalled his brother
                                  Nikolay, and dwelt with pleasure on the thought of him.
                                  ‘Isn’t he right that everything in the world is base and
                                  loathsome? And are we fair in our judgment of brother
                                  Nikolay? Of course, from the point of view of Prokofy,
                                  seeing him in a torn cloak and tipsy, he’s a despicable
                                  person. But I know him differently. I know his soul, and
                                  know that we are like him. And I, instead of going to seek




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