Page 909 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

white hands, then the queer posture of Alexey
Alexandrovitch on the floor beside the bed.
‘To sleep! To forget!’ he said to himself with the serene
confidence of a healthy man that if he is tired and sleepy,

he will go to sleep at once. And the same instant his head
did begin to feel drowsy and he began to drop off into
forgetfulness. The waves of the sea of unconsciousness had
begun to meet over his head, when all at once—it was as
though a violent shock of electricity had passed over him.
He started so that he leaped up on the springs of the sofa,
and leaning on his arms got in a panic onto his knees. His
eyes were wide open as though he had never been asleep.
The heaviness in his head and the weariness in his limbs
that he had felt a minute before had suddenly gone.
‘You may trample me in the mud,’ he heard Alexey
Alexandrovitch’s words and saw him standing before him,
and saw Anna’s face with its burning flush and glittering
eyes, gazing with love and tenderness not at him but at
Alexey Alexandrovitch; he saw his own, as he fancied,
foolish and ludicrous figure when Alexey Alexandrovitch
took his hands away from his face. He stretched out his
legs again and flung himself on the sofa in the same
position and shut his eyes.

908 of 1759