Page 892 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

was religious, had never doubted the truths of religion, but
his external unbelief did not affect her in the least.
Through love she knew all his soul, and in his soul she
saw what she wanted, and that such a state of soul should

be called unbelieving was to her a matter of no account.
The other confession set her weeping bitterly.
Levin, not without an inner struggle, handed her his
diary. He knew that between him and her there could not
be, and should not be, secrets, and so he had decided that
so it must be. But he had not realized what an effect it
would have on her, he had not put himself in her place. It
was only when the same evening he came to their house
before the theater, went into her room and saw her tear-
stained, pitiful, sweet face, miserable with suffering he had
caused and nothing could undo, he felt the abyss that
separated his shameful past from her dovelike purity, and
was appalled at what he had done.
‘Take them, take these dreadful books!’ she said,
pushing away the notebooks lying before her on the table.
‘Why did you give them me? No, it was better anyway,’
she added, touched by his despairing face. ‘But it’s awful,
awful!’
His head sank, and he was silent. He could say nothing.
‘You can’t forgive me,’ he whispered.

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