Anna Karenina - Part 8

"And could the astronomers have understood and calculated

anything, if they had taken into account all the complicated and

varied motions of the earth? All the marvelous conclusions they

have reached about the distances, weights, movements, and

deflections of the heavenly bodies are only founded on the

apparent motions of the heavenly bodies about a stationary earth,

on that very motion I see before me now, which has been so for

millions of men during long ages, and was and will be always

alike, and can always be trusted. And just as the conclusions of

the astronomers would have been vain and uncertain if not founded

on observations of the seen heavens, in relation to a single

meridian and a single horizon, so would my conclusions be vain

and uncertain if not founded on that conception of right, which

has been and will be always alike for all men, which has been

revealed to me as a Christian, and which can always be trusted in

my soul. The question of other religions and their relations to

Divinity I have no right to decide, and no possibility of

deciding."

"Oh, you haven't gone in then?" he heard Kitty's voice all at

once, as she came by the same way to the drawing-room.

"What is it? you're not worried about anything?" she said,

looking intently at his face in the starlight.

But she could not have seen his face if a flash of lightning had

not hidden the stars and revealed it. In that flash she saw his

face distinctly, and seeing him calm and happy, she smiled at

him.

"She understands," he thought; "she knows what I'm thinking

about. Shall I tell her or not? Yes, I'll tell her." But at the

moment he was about to speak, she began speaking.

"Kostya! do something for me," she said; "go into the corner room

and see if they've made it all right for Sergey Ivanovitch. I

can't very well. See if they've put the new wash stand in it."

"Very well, I'll go directly," said Levin, standing up and

kissing her.

"No, I'd better not speak of it," he thought, when she had gone

in before him. "It is a secret for me alone, of vital importance

for me, and not to be put into words.

"This new feeling has not changed me, has not made me happy and

enlightened all of a sudden, as I had dreamed, just like the

feeling for my child. There was no surprise in this either.

Faith--or not faith--I don't know what it is--but this feeling

has come just as imperceptibly through suffering, and has taken

firm root in my soul.