Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 9
hadn’t heard there was such a thing as love, he would never have used the word. He
doesn’t even know what love is.”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch, really I don’t understand,” she said. “Define what it is
you find...”
“Pardon, let me say all I have to say. I love you. But I am not speaking of myself;
the most important persons in this matter are our son and yourself. It may very well
be, I repeat, that my words seem to you utterly unnecessary and out of place; it may
be that they are called forth by my mistaken impression. In that case, I beg you to
forgive me. But if you are conscious yourself of even the smallest foundation for
them, then I beg you to think a little, and if your heart prompts you, to speak out to
me...”
Alexey Alexandrovitch was unconsciously saying something utterly unlike what
he had prepared.
“I have nothing to say. And besides,” she said hurriedly, with difficulty repressing
a smile, “it’s really time to be in bed.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch sighed, and, without saying more, went into the bedroom.
When she came into the bedroom, he was already in bed. His lips were sternly
compressed, and his eyes looked away from her. Anna got into her bed, and lay
expecting every minute that he would begin to speak to her again. She both feared
his speaking and wished for it. But he was silent. She waited for a long while without
moving, and had forgotten about him. She thought of that other; she pictured him,
and felt how her heart was flooded with emotion and guilty delight at the thought
of him. Suddenly she heard an even, tranquil snore. For the first instant Alexey
Alexandrovitch seemed, as it were, appalled at his own snoring, and ceased; but
after an interval of two breathings the snore sounded again, with a new tranquil
rhythm.
“It’s late, it’s late,” she whispered with a smile. A long while she lay, not moving,
with open eyes, whose brilliance she almost fancied she could herself see in the
darkness.
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