Page 332 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

liked talking to: ‘Well, Nikolay! I mean to get married,’
and how Nikolay had promptly answered, as of a matter
on which there could be no possible doubt: ‘And high
time too, Konstantin Demitrievitch.’ But marriage had

now become further off than ever. The place was taken,
and whenever he tried to imagine any of the girls he knew
in that place, he felt that it was utterly impossible.
Moreover, the recollection of the rejection and the part he
had played in the affair tortured him with shame.
However often he told himself that he was in no wise to
blame in it, that recollection, like other humiliating
reminiscences of a similar kind, made him twinge and
blush. There had been in his past, as in every man’s,
actions, recognized by him as bad, for which his
conscience ought to have tormented him; but the memory
of these evil actions was far from causing him so much
suffering as those trivial but humiliating reminiscences.
These wounds never healed. And with these memories
was now ranged his rejection and the pitiful position in
which he must have appeared to others that evening. But
time and work did their part. Bitter memories were more
and more covered up by the incidents—paltry in his eyes,
but really important—of his country life. Every week he
thought less often of Kitty. He was impatiently looking

331 of 1759