Page 841 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron, through the fine
cloth of the coat.
‘What biceps! A perfect Samson!’
‘I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears,’

observed Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest
notions about the chase. He cut off and spread with cheese
a wafer of bread fine as a spider-web.
Levin smiled.
‘Not at all. Quite the contrary; a child can kill a bear,’
he said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who
were approaching the table.
‘You have killed a bear, I’ve been told!’ said Kitty,
trying assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse
mushroom that would slip away, and setting the lace
quivering over her white arm. ‘Are there bears on your
place?’ she added, turning her charming little head to him
and smiling.
There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what
she said, but what unutterable meaning there was for him
in every sound, in every turn of her lips, her eyes, her
hand as she said it! There was entreaty for forgiveness, and
trust in him, and tenderness— soft, timid tenderness—and
promise and hope and love for him, which he could not
but believe in and which choked him with happiness.

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