Page 91 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

the ringlets are vermin to my mind, and all fallen women
are the same.’
‘But the Magdalen?’
‘Ah, drop that! Christ would never have said those

words if He had known how they would be abused. Of all
the Gospel those words are the only ones remembered.
However, I’m not saying so much what I think, as what I
feel. I have a loathing for fallen women. You’re afraid of
spiders, and I of these vermin. Most likely you’ve not
made a study of spiders and don’t know their character;
and so it is with me.’
‘It’s very well for you to talk like that; it’s very much
like that gentleman in Dickens who used to fling all
difficult questions over his right shoulder. But to deny the
facts is no answer. What’s to be done—you tell me that,
what’s to be done? Your wife gets older, while you’re full
of life. Before you’ve time to look round, you feel that
you can’t love your wife with love, however much you
may esteem her. And then all at once love turns up, and
you’re done for, done for,’ Stepan Arkadyevitch said with
weary despair.
Levin half smiled.
‘Yes, you’re done for,’ resumed Oblonsky. ‘But what’s
to be done?’

90 of 1759