Page 331 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 12

In the early days after his return from Moscow,
whenever Levin shuddered and grew red, remembering
the disgrace of his rejection, he said to himself: ‘This was
just how I used to shudder and blush, thinking myself
utterly lost, when I was plucked in physics and did not get
my remove; and how I thought myself utterly ruined after
I had mismanaged that affair of my sister’s that was
entrusted to me. And yet, now that years have passed, I
recall it and wonder that it could distress me so much. It
will be the same thing too with this trouble. Time will go
by and I shall not mind about this either.’
But three months had passed and he had not left off
minding about it; and it was as painful for him to think of
it as it had been those first days. He could not be at peace
because after dreaming so long of family life, and feeling
himself so ripe for it, he was still not married, and was
further than ever from marriage. He was painfully
conscious himself, as were all about him, that at his years it
is not well for man to be alone. He remembered how
before starting for Moscow he had once said to his
cowman Nikolay, a simple-hearted peasant, whom he

330 of 1759