Page 229 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

especially the ears that struck her at the moment as
propping up the brim of his round hat. Catching sight of
her, he came to meet her, his lips falling into their habitual
sarcastic smile, and his big, tired eyes looking straight at

her. An unpleasant sensation gripped at her heart when she
met his obstinate and weary glance, as though she had
expected to see him different. She was especially struck by
the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that she
experienced on meeting him. That feeling was an
intimate, familiar feeling, like a consciousness of hypocrisy,
which she experienced in her relations with her husband.
But hitherto she had not taken note of the feeling, now
she was clearly and painfully aware of it.
‘Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as the
first year after marriage, burned with impatience to see
you,’ he said in his deliberate, high-pitched voice, and in
that tone which he almost always took with her, a tone of
jeering at anyone who should say in earnest what he said.
‘Is Seryozha quite well?’ she asked.
‘And is this all the reward,’ said he, ‘for my ardor? He’s
quite well..’

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