Anna Karenina - Part 5

"Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to

manage all this," said Levin. "And...I must own I'm very,

very glad you came. You are such purity that...." He took her

hand and did not kiss it (to kiss her hand in such closeness to

death seemed to him improper); he merely squeezed it with a

penitent air, looking at her brightening eyes.

"It would have been miserable for you to be alone," she said, and

lifting her hands which hid her cheeks flushing with pleasure,

twisted her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it

there. "No," she went on, "she did not know how.... Luckily, I

learned a lot at Soden."

"Surely there are not people there so ill?"

"Worse."

"What's so awful to me is that I can't see him as he was when he

was young. You would not believe how charming he was as a youth,

but I did not understand him then."

"I can quite, quite believe it. How I feel that we might have

been friends!" she said; and, distressed at what she had said,

she looked round at her husband, and tears came into her eyes.

"Yes, _might have been_," he said mournfully. "He's just one of

those people of whom they say they're not for this world."

"But we have many days before us; we must go to bed," said Kitty,

glancing at her tiny watch.