Page 782 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

had got out of that circle of activity in which everything
was definite, he had given himself entirely to his passion,
and that passion was binding him more and more closely
to her.

He was still in the hall when he caught the sound of
her retreating footsteps. He knew she had been expecting
him, had listened for him, and was now going back to the
drawing room.
‘No,’ she cried, on seeing him, and at the first sound of
her voice the tears came into her eyes. ‘No; if things are to
go on like this, the end will come much, much too soon.’
‘What is it, dear one?’
‘What? I’ve been waiting in agony for an hour, two
hours...No, I won’t...I can’t quarrel with you. Of course
you couldn’t come. No, I won’t.’ She laid her two hands
on his shoulders, and looked a long while at him with a
profound, passionate, and at the same time searching look.
She was studying his face to make up for the time she had
not seen him. She was, every time she saw him, making
the picture of him in her imagination (incomparably
superior, impossible in reality) fit with him as he really
was.

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