Page 932 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

And Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. No one else in
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s place, having to do with such
despair, would have ventured to smile (the smile would
have seemed brutal); but in his smile there was so much of

sweetness and almost feminine tenderness that his smile
did not wound, but softened and soothed. His gentle,
soothing words and smiles were as soothing and softening
as almond oil. And Anna soon felt this.
‘No, Stiva,’ she said, ‘I’m lost, lost! worse than lost! I
can’t say yet that all is over; on the contrary, I feel that it’s
not over. I’m an overstrained string that must snap. But it’s
not ended yet...and it will have a fearful end.’
‘No matter, we must let the string be loosened, little by
little. There’s no position from which there is no way of
escape.’
‘I have thought, and thought. Only one..’
Again he knew from her terrified eyes that this one
way of escape in her thought was death, and he would not
let her say it.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Listen to me. You can’t see your
own position as I can. Let me tell you candidly my
opinion.’ Again he smiled discreetly his almond-oil smile.
‘I’ll begin from the beginning. You married a man twenty
years older than yourself. You married him without love

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