Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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felt
that by that very word "forbidden" she had shown that she
acknowledged certain rights over him, and by that very fact was
encouraging him to speak of love. "I have long meant to tell you
this," she went on, looking resolutely into his eyes, and hot all
over from the burning flush on her cheeks. "Ive come on purpose
this evening, knowing I should meet you. I have come to tell you
that this must end. I have never blushed before anyone, and you
force me to feel to blame for something."
He looked at her and was struck by a new spiritual beauty in her
face.
"What do you wish of me?" he said simply and seriously.
"I want you to go to Moscow and ask for Kittys forgiveness," she
said.
"You dont wish that?" he said.
He saw she was saying what she forced herself to say, not what
she wanted to say.
"If you love me, as you say," she whispered, "do so that I may
be at peace."
His face grew radiant.
"Dont you know that youre all my life to me? But I know no
peace, and I cant give it to you; all myself--and love...yes. I
cant think of you and myself apart. You and I are one to me.
And I see no chance before us of peace for me or for you. I see
a chance of despair, of wretchedness...or I see a chance of
bliss, what bliss!... Can it be theres no chance of it?" he
murmured with his lips; but she heard.
She strained every effort of her mind to say what ought to be
said. But instead of that she let her eyes rest on him, full of
love, and made no answer.
"Its come!" he thought in ecstasy. "When I was beginning to
despair, and it seemed there would be no end--its come! She
loves me! She owns it!"
"Then do this for me: never say such things to me, and let us be
friends," she said in words; but her eyes spoke quite
differently.
"Friends we shall never be, you know that yourself. Whether we
shall be the happiest or the wretchedest of people--thats in
your hands."
She would have said something, but he interrupted her.
"I ask one thing only: I ask for the right to hope, to suffer as
I do. But if even that cannot be, command me to disappear, and
I disappear. You shall not see me if my presence is distasteful
to you."
"I dont want to drive you away."
"Only dont change anything, leave everything as it is," he said
in a shaky voice. "Heres your husband."
At that instant Alexey Alexandrovitch did in fact walk into the
room with his calm, awkward gait.
Glancing at his wife and Vronsky, he went up to the lady of the
house, and sitting down for a cup of tea, began talking in his
deliberate, always audible voice, in his habitual tone of banter,
ridiculing someone.
"Your Rambouillet is in full conclave," he said, looking round at
all the party; "the graces and the muses."
But Princess Betsy could not endure that tone of his--
"sneering," as she called it, using the English word, and like a
skillful hostess she at once brought him into a serious
conversation on the subject of universal conscription. Alexey
Alexandrovitch was immediately interested in the subject, and
began seriously defending the new imperial decree against
Princess Betsy, who had attacked it.
Vronsky and Anna still sat at the little table.
"This is getting indecorous," whispered one lady, with an
expressive glance at Madame Karenina, Vronsky, and her husband.
"What did I tell you?" said Annas friend.
But not only those ladies, almost everyone in the room, even the
Princess Myakaya and Betsy herself, looked several times in the
direction of the two who had withdrawn from the general circle,
as though that were a disturbing fact. Alexey Alexandrovitch was
the only person who did not once look in that direction, and was
not diverted from the interesting discussion he had entered upon.
Noticing the disagreeable impression that was being made on
everyone, Princess Betsy slipped someone else into her place to
listen to Alexey Alexandrovitch, and went up to Anna.
"Im always amazed at the clearness and precision of your
husbands language," she said. "The most transcendental ideas
seem to be within my grasp when hes speaking."
"Oh, yes!" said Anna, radiant with a smile of happiness, and not
understanding a word of what Betsy had said.
Anna Karenina page 78 Anna Karenina page 80
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