Page 878 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child
up...’ he was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently
catching Levin’s enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning.
But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed,

and Levin was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything
at dinner, had refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky’s, but he
was incapable of thinking of supper. He had not slept the
previous night, but was incapable of thinking of sleep
either. His room was cold, but he was oppressed by heat.
He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat
down to the table opposite the open panes. Over the
snow-covered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with
chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles’s Wain
with the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross,
then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that flowed
evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream
the images and memories that rose in his imagination. At
four o’clock he heard steps in the passage and peeped out
at the door. It was the gambler Myaskin, whom he knew,
coming from the club. He walked gloomily, frowning and
coughing. ‘Poor, unlucky fellow!’ thought Levin, and tears
came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He
would have talked with him, and tried to comfort him,
but remembering that he had nothing but his shirt on, he

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