Anna Karenina - Part 7

"Here it is again! Again I understand it all!" Anna said to

herself, as soon as the carriage had started and swaying lightly,

rumbled over the tiny cobbles of the paved road, and again one

impression followed rapidly upon another.

"Yes; what was the last thing I thought of so clearly?" she tried

to recall it. "_'Tiutkin, coiffeur?'_--no, not that. Yes, of what

Yashvin says, the struggle for existence and hatred is the one

thing that holds men together. No, it's a useless journey you're

making," she said, mentally addressing a party in a coach and

four, evidently going for an excursion into the country. "And

the dog you're taking with you will be no help to you. You can't

get away from yourselves." Turning her eyes in the direction

Pyotr had turned to look, she saw a factory hand almost dead

drunk, with hanging head, being led away by a policeman. "Come,

he's found a quicker way," she thought. "Count Vronsky and I did

not find that happiness either, though we expected so much from

it." And now for the first time Anna turned that glaring light

in which she was seeing everything on to her relations with him,

which she had hitherto avoided thinking about. "What was it he

sought in me? Not love so much as the satisfaction of vanity."

She remembered his words, the expression of his face, that

recalled an abject setter-dog, in the early days of their

connection. And everything now confirmed this. "Yes, there was

the triumph of success in him. Of course there was love too, but

the chief element was the pride of success. He boasted of me.

Now that's over. There's nothing to be proud of. Not to be

proud of, but to be ashamed of. He has taken from me all he

could, and now I am no use to him. He is weary of me and is

trying not to be dishonorable in his behavior to me. He let that

out yesterday--he wants divorce and marriage so as to burn his

ships. He loves me, but how? The zest is gone, as the English

say. That fellow wants everyone to admire him and is very much

pleased with himself," she thought, looking at a red-faced clerk,

riding on a riding school horse. "Yes, there's not the same

flavor about me for him now. If I go away from him, at the

bottom of his heart he will be glad."

This was not mere supposition, she saw it distinctly in the

piercing light, which revealed to her now the meaning of life and

human relations.