Page 689 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘You’re not angry that I sent for you? I absolutely had
to see you,’ she said; and the serious and set line of her
lips, which he saw under the veil, transformed his mood at
once.

‘I angry! But how have you come, where from?’
‘Never mind,’ she said, laying her hand on his, ‘come
along, I must talk to you.’
He saw that something had happened, and that the
interview would not be a joyous one. In her presence he
had no will of his own: without knowing the grounds of
her distress, he already felt the same distress unconsciously
passing over him.
‘What is it? what?’ he asked her, squeezing her hand
with his elbow, and trying to read her thoughts in her
face.
She walked on a few steps in silence, gathering up her
courage; then suddenly she stopped.
‘I did not tell you yesterday,’ she began, breathing
quickly and painfully, ‘that coming home with Alexey
Alexandrovitch I told him everything...told him I could
not be his wife, that...and told him everything.’
He heard her, unconsciously bending his whole figure
down to her as though hoping in this way to soften the
hardness of her position for her. But directly she had said

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