Page 938 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

generosity. If she were to read this letter, she would be
incapable of saying anything, she would only hang her
head lower than ever.’
‘Yes, but what’s to be done in that case? how explain,

how find out her wishes?’
‘If you will allow me to give my opinion, I think that it
lies with you to point out directly the steps you consider
necessary to end the position.’
‘So you consider it must be ended?’ Alexey
Alexandrovitch interrupted him. ‘But how?’ he added,
with a gesture of his hands before his eyes not usual with
him. ‘I see no possible way out of it.’
‘There is some way of getting out of every position,’
said Stepan Arkadyevitch, standing up and becoming more
cheerful. ‘There was a time when you thought of breaking
off.... If you are convinced now that you cannot make
each other happy..’
‘Happiness may be variously understood. But suppose
that I agree to everything, that I want nothing: what way
is there of getting out of our position?’
‘If you care to know my opinion,’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch with the same smile of softening, almond-oil
tenderness with which he had been talking to Anna. His
kindly smile was so winning that Alexey Alexandrovitch,

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