Page 910 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘To sleep! To forget!’ he repeated to himself. But with
his eyes shut he saw more distinctly than ever Anna’s face
as it had been on the memorable evening before the races.
‘That is not and will not be, and she wants to wipe it

out of her memory. But I cannot live without it. How can
we be reconciled? how can we be reconciled?’ he said
aloud, and unconsciously began to repeat these words.
This repetition checked the rising up of fresh images and
memories, which he felt were thronging in his brain. But
repeating words did not check his imagination for long.
Again in extraordinarily rapid succession his best moments
rose before his mind, and then his recent humiliation.
‘Take away his hands,’ Anna’s voice says. He takes away
his hands and feels the shamestruck and idiotic expression
of his face.
He still lay down, trying to sleep, though he felt there
was not the smallest hope of it, and kept repeating stray
words from some chain of thought, trying by this to check
the rising flood of fresh images. He listened, and heard in a
strange, mad whisper words repeated: ‘I did not appreciate
it, did not make enough of it. I did not appreciate it, did
not make enough of it.’
‘What’s this? Am I going out of my mind?’ he said to
himself. ‘Perhaps. What makes men go out of their minds;

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