Page 467 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

was feeling infected him too. He saw the smile, and a
strange misapprehension came over him.
‘She is smiling at my suspicions. Yes, she will tell me
directly what she told me before; that there is no

foundation for my suspicions, that it’s absurd.’
At that moment, when the revelation of everything was
hanging over him, there was nothing he expected so much
as that she would answer mockingly as before that his
suspicions were absurd and utterly groundless. So terrible
to him was that he knew that now he was ready to believe
anything. But the expression of her face, scared and
gloomy, did not now promise even deception.
‘Possibly I was mistaken,’ said he. ‘If so, I beg your
pardon.’
‘No, you were not mistaken,’ she said deliberately,
looking desperately into his cold face. ‘You were not
mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I
hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his
mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid of you, and I hate
you.... You can do what you like to me.’
And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she
broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey
Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking straight
before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the solemn

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