Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 10
“No, wait a minute,” she said, clutching him by the sleeve. “Wait a minute, sit
down.”
“Please, please, don’t let us talk of this,” he said, sitting down, and at the same
time feeling rise up and stir within his heart a hope he had believed to be buried.
“If I did not like you,” she said, and tears came into her eyes; “if I did not know
you, as I do know you . . .”
The feeling that had seemed dead revived more and more, rose up and took possession
of Levin’s heart.
“Yes, I understand it all now,” said Darya Alexandrovna. “You can’t understand
it; for you men, who are free and make your own choice, it’s always clear whom you
love. But a girl’s in a position of suspense, with all a woman’s or maiden’s modesty,
a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust,– a girl may have,
and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say.”
“Yes, if the heart does not speak...”
“No, the heart does speak; but just consider: you men have views about a girl, you
come to the house, you make friends, you criticize, you wait to see if you have found
what you love, and then, when you are sure you love her, you make an offer....”
“Well, that’s not quite it.”
“Anyway you make an offer, when your love is ripe or when the balance has
completely turned between the two you are choosing from. But a girl is not asked.
She is expected to make her choice, and yet she cannot choose, she can only answer
‘yes’ or ‘no.”’
“Yes, to choose between me and Vronsky,” thought Levin, and the dead thing that
had come to life within him died again, and only weighed on his heart and set it
aching.
“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said, “that’s how one chooses a new dress or some
purchase or other, not love. The choice has been made, and so much the better....
And there can be no repeating it.”
“Ah, pride, pride!” said Darya Alexandrovna, as though despising him for the
baseness of this feeling in comparison with that other feeling which only women
know. “At the time when you made Kitty an offer she was just in a position in which
she could not answer. She was in doubt. Doubt between you and Vronsky. Him she
was seeing every day, and you she had not seen for a long while. Supposing she had
been older...I, for instance, in her place could have felt no doubt. I always disliked
him, and so it has turned out.”
Levin recalled Kitty’s answer. She had said: “No, that cannot be...”
“Darya Alexandrovna,” he said dryly, “I appreciate your confidence in me; I believe
you are making a mistake. But whether I am right or wrong, that pride you so
despise makes any thought of Katerina Alexandrovna out of the question for me,–
you understand, utterly out of the question.”
“I will only say one thing more: you know that I am speaking of my sister, whom
I love as I love my own children. I don’t say she cared for you, all I meant to say is
that her refusal at that moment proves nothing.”
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