Anna Karenina - Part 4

"Yes, yes," she said, evidently trying to suppress her jealous

thoughts. "But if only you knew how wretched I am! I believe

you, I believe you.... What were you saying?"

But he could not at once recall what he had been going to say.

These fits of jealousy, which of late had been more and more

frequent with her, horrified him, and however much he tried to

disguise the fact, made him feel cold to her, although he knew

the cause of her jealousy was her love for him. How often he had

told himself that her love was happiness; and now she loved him

as a woman can love when love has outweighed for her all the good

things of life--and he was much further from happiness than when

he had followed her from Moscow. Then he had thought himself

unhappy, but happiness was before him; now he felt that the best

happiness was already left behind. She was utterly unlike what

she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically

she had changed for the worse. She had broadened out all over,

and in her face at the time when she was speaking of the actress

there was an evil expression of hatred that distorted it. He

looked at her as a man looks at a faded flower he has gathered,

with difficulty recognizing in it the beauty for which he picked

and ruined it. And in spite of this he felt that then, when his

love was stronger, he could, if he had greatly wished it, have

torn that love out of his heart; but now, when as at that moment

it seemed to him he felt no love for her, he knew that what bound

him to her could not be broken.

"Well, well, what was it you were going to say about the prince?

I have driven away the fiend," she added. The fiend was the

name they had given her jealousy. "What did you begin to tell me

about the prince? Why did you find it so tiresome?"

"Oh, it was intolerable!" he said, trying to pick up the thread

of his interrupted thought. "He does not improve on closer

acquaintance. If you want him defined, here he is: a prime,

well-fed beast such as takes medals at the cattle shows, and

nothing more," he said, with a tone of vexation that interested

her.

"No; how so?" she replied. "He's seen a great deal, anyway; he's

cultured?"

"It's an utterly different culture--their culture. He's

cultivated, one sees, simply to be able to despise culture, as

they despise everything but animal pleasures."