Page 303 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘But by marriages of prudence we mean those in which
both parties have sown their wild oats already. That’s like
scarlatina—one has to go through it and get it over.’
‘Then they ought to find out how to vaccinate for

love, like smallpox.’
‘I was in love in my young days with a deacon,’ said
the Princess Myakaya. ‘I don’t know that it did me any
good.’
‘No; I imagine, joking apart, that to know love, one
must make mistakes and then correct them,’ said Princess
Betsy.
‘Even after marriage?’ aid the ambassador’s wife
playfully.
‘‘It’s never too late to mend.’’ The attache repeated the
English proverb.
‘Just so,’ Betsy agreed; ‘one must make mistakes and
correct them. What do you think about it?’ she turned to
Anna, who, with a faintly perceptible resolute smile on her
lips, was listening in silence to the conversation.
‘I think,’ said Anna, playing with the glove she had
taken off, ‘I think...if so many men, so many minds,
certainly so many hearts, so many kinds of love.’

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