Page 413 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

But she was mistaken in thinking he realized the gravity
of the fact as she, a woman, realized it. On hearing it, he
felt come upon him with tenfold intensity that strange
feeling of loathing of someone. But at the same time, he

felt that the turning-point he had been longing for had
come now; that it was impossible to go on concealing
things from her husband, and it was inevitable in one way
or another that they should soon put an end to their
unnatural position. But, besides that, her emotion
physically affected him in the same way. He looked at her
with a look of submissive tenderness, kissed her hand, got
up, and, in silence, paced up and down the terrace.
‘Yes,’ he said, going up to her resolutely. ‘Neither you
nor I have looked on our relations as a passing amusement,
and now our fate is sealed. It is absolutely necessary to put
an end’—he looked round as he spoke—‘to the deception
in which we are living.’
‘Put an end? How put an end, Alexey?’ she said softly.
She was calmer now, and her face lighted up with a
tender smile.
‘Leave your husband and make our life one.’
‘It is one as it is,’ she answered, scarcely audibly.
‘Yes, but altogether; altogether.’

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