Page 640 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

humiliated me, and been just as pleased with himself.
Haven’t I striven, striven with all my strength, to find
something to give meaning to my life? Haven’t I struggled
to love him, to love my son when I could not love my

husband? But the time came when I knew that I couldn’t
cheat myself any longer, that I was alive, that I was not to
blame, that God has made me so that I must love and live.
And now what does he do? If he’d killed me, if he’d killed
him, I could have borne anything, I could have forgiven
anything; but, no, he.... How was it I didn’t guess what he
would do? He’s doing just what’s characteristic of his
mean character. He’ll keep himself in the right, while me,
in my ruin, he’ll drive still lower to worse ruin yet..’
She recalled the words from the letter. ‘You can
conjecture what awaits you and your son....’ ‘That’s a
threat to take away my child, and most likely by their
stupid law he can. But I know very well why he says it.
He doesn’t believe even in my love for my child, or he
despises it (just as he always used to ridicule it). He
despises that feeling in me, but he knows that I won’t
abandon my child, that I can’t abandon my child, that
there could be no life for me without my child, even with
him whom I love; but that if I abandoned my child and
ran away from him, I should be acting like the most

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