Page 322 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

one side, began with her rapid hand taking out her
hairpins.
‘Well, I’m listening to what’s to come,’ she said, calmly
and ironically; ‘and indeed I listened with interest, for I

should like to understand what’s the matter.’
She spoke, and marveled at the confident, calm, and
natural tone in which she was speaking, and the choice of
the words she used.
‘To enter into all the details of your feelings I have no
right, and besides, I regard that as useless and even
harmful,’ began Alexey Alexandrovitch. ‘Ferreting in one’s
soul, one often ferrets out something that might have lain
there unnoticed. Your feelings are an affair of your own
conscience; but I am in duty bound to you, to myself, and
to God, to point out to you your duties. Our life has been
joined, not by man, but by God. That union can only be
severed by a crime, and a crime of that nature brings its
own chastisement.’
‘I don’t understand a word. And, oh dear! how sleepy I
am, unluckily,’ she said, rapidly passing her hand through
her hair, feeling for the remaining hairpins.
‘Anna, for God’s sake don’t speak like that!’ he said
gently. ‘Perhaps I am mistaken, but believe me, what I say,

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