Love

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  And so, probably, does each animal feel about the particular things it tends to do in presence of particular objects. They, too, are a priori syntheses. To the lion it is the lioness which is made to be loved; to the bear, the she-bear. To the broody hen the notion would probably seem monstrous that there should be a creature in the world to whom a nestful of eggs was not the utterly fascinating and precious and never-to-be-too-much-sat-upon object which it is to her.[378] Thus we may be sure that, however mysterious some animals' instincts may appear to us, our instincts will appear no less mysterious to them. And we may conclude that, to the animal which obeys it, every impulse and every step of every instinct shines with its own sufficient light, end seems at the moment the only eternally right and proper thing to do. It is done for its own sake exclusively. What voluptuous thrill may not shake a fly, when she at last discovers the one particular leaf, or carrion, or bit of dung, that out of all the world can stimulate her ovipositor to its discharge? Does not the discharge then seem to her the only fitting thing? And need she care or know anything about the future maggot and its food? Since the egg-laying instincts are simple examples to consider, a few quotations about them from Schneider may be serviceable:

• From The Principles of Psychology (Volume 1 of 2) (1890)

  [377] P. A. Chadbourne: Instinct, p. 28 (New York, 1872).[378] "It would be very simple-minded to suppose that bees follow their queen, and protect her and care for her, because they are aware that with-out her the hive would become extinct. The odor or the aspect of their queen is manifestly agreeable to the bees—that is why they love her so. Does not all true love base itself on agreeable perceptions much more than on representations of utility?" (G. H. Schneider, Der Thierische Wille, p. 187.) A priori, there is no reason to suppose that any sensation might not in some animal cause any emotion and any impulse. To us it seems unnatural that an odor should directly excite anger or fear; or a color, lust. Yet there are creatures to which some smells are quite as frightful as any sounds, and very likely others to which color is as much a sexual irritant as form.[379] Classics editor's note: James insertion.[380] Der Thierische Wille, pp. 282-3.[381] In the instincts of mammals, and even of lower creatures, the uniformity and infallibility which, a generation ago, were considered as essential characters do not exist. The minuter study of recent years has found continuity, transition, variation, and mistake, wherever it has looked for them, and decided that what is called an instinct is usually only a tendency to act in a way of which the average is pretty constant, but which need not be mathematically 'true.' Ct. on this point Darwin's Origin of Species: Romanes's Mental Evol., chaps. xi to xvi incl., and Appendix; W. L. Lindsay's Mind in Lower Animals, vol. I. 133-141; ii. chaps, v, xx; and K. Semper's Conditions of Existence in Animals, where a great many instances will be found.[382] Spalding, Macmillan's Magazine, Feb. 1873, p. 287.[383] Ibid . p. 289[384] For the cases in full see Mental Evolution in Animals. pp. 213-217.[385] Transactions of American Neurological Association, vol. I. p. 129(1875).[386] "Mr. Spalding," says Mr. Lewes (Problems of Life and Mind, prob. chap. ii. ' 22, note), "tells me of a friend of his who reared a gosling in the kitchen, away from all water; when this bird was some months old, and was taken to a pond, it not only refused to go into the water, but when thrown in scrambled out again, as a hen would have done. Here was an instinct entirely suppressed." See a similar observation on ducklings in T. R. H. Stebbing: Essays on Darwinism (London, 1871), p. 73.[387] "Senses and Intellect. 3rd ed. pp. 413-675.[388] Nature, xii. 507 (1875).[389] See, for some excellent pedagogic remarks about doing yourself when you want to get your pupils to do, and not simply telling them to do it, Baumann, Handbuch der Moral (1879), p. 32 ff.[390] Sympathy has been enormously written about In books on Ethics. a very good recent chapter is that by Thos. Fowler. The Principles of Morals, part ii. chap. ff.[391] I must now refer to a very general passion which occurs

• From Story of O (1954)

  For the next eight days, between dusk when her stint in the library came to an end and that hour of the night - which was generally eight or ten o'clock - when she was returned to her cell, in chains and naked beneath her red cape, O wore an ebonite shaft simulating an erect male member which was inserted behind and held in place by three small chains connected to a leather belt around her hips, in such a way that the internal movements of her muscles could not expel it. One little chain followed the furrow of her buttocks, the two others the fold on either side of the belly's triangle, in order not to prevent anyone from penetrating that side if need be. When René had rung, it was to have the coffer brought in which contained, or one of whose compartments contained, an assortment of small chains and belts, and whose other held a variety of these shafts, ranging from the very thin to the very thick. They all had one feature in common, namely that they flared at the base, to make it impossible for them to slide up inside the body, an accident which might have produced the opposite effect from that desired, that is it might have allowed the ring of flesh to tighten up again, whereas the purpose of the shaft was to distend it. Thus quartered, and quartered each day a little more, for James, who made her kneel down, or rather lie prone, to watch while Jeanne or Monique, or whichever girl happened to be there, fastened the shaft that he had chosen, each day chose a thicker one. At the evening meal, which the girls took together in the same refectory, after their bath, naked and powdered O still wore it, and everyone could see that she was wearing it, because of the little chains and the belt. It was only removed, by the valet, when he came to chain her to the wall for the night if no one had asked for her, or, if someone had, when he locked her hands behind her if he had to take her to the library. Rare were the nights when someone did not appear to make use of this passage thus rapidly rendered as easy as, though still narrower than, the other. After eight days there was no longer any need for an instrument, and O's lover told her that he was happy she was now doubly open and that he would make certain she remained so. At the same time, he warned her that he was leaving and that she would not see him during the last seven days that she was to spend in the chateau, before he came back to pick her up and take her back to Paris. "But I love you," he added, "I do love you. Don't forget me."

• From Story of O (1954)

  on him, and on him alone, even though she might receive orders from persons other than himself, whether he was present or absent, for as a matter of principle he was participating in whatever might be demanded of or inflicted on her, and that it was he who possessed and enjoyed her through those into whose hands she had been given, by the simple fact that he had given her to them. She must greet them and submit to them with the same respect with which she greeted him, as though they were so many reflections of him. Thus he would possess her as a god possesses his creatures, whom he lays hold of in the guise of a monster or a bird, of an invisible spirit or a state of ecstasy. He did not wish to leave her. The more he surrendered her, the more he would hold her dear. The fact that he gave her was to him a proof, and ought to be one for her as well that she belonged to him: one can only give what belongs to you. He gave her only to reclaim her immediately, to reclaim her enriched in his eyes, like some common object which had been used for some divine purpose and has thus been consecrated. For a long time he had wanted to prostitute her, and he was delighted to feel that the pleasure he was deriving was even greater than he had hoped, and that it bound him to her all the more, as it bound her to him, all the more so because, through it, she would be more humiliated and ravaged. Since she loved him, she could not help loving whatever derived from him. O listened and trembled with happiness, because he loved her, all acquiescent she trembled. He doubtless guessed it, for he went on: "It's because it's easy for you to consent that I want from you what it will be impossible for you to consent to, even if you agree ahead of time, even if you say yes now and imagine yourself capable of submitting. You won't be able not to revolt. Your submission will be obtained in spite of you, not only for the inimitable pleasure that I and others will derive from it, but also that you will be made aware of what has been done to you." O was on the verge of saying that she was his slave and that she bore her bonds cheerfully. He stopped her. "Yesterday you were told that as long as you are in the chateau you are not to look a man in the face of speak to him. The same applies to me as well: with me you shall remain silent and obey. I love you. Now get up. From now on the only times that you will open your mouth here in the presence of a man will be to cry out or to caress."

• From Sex at Dawn (2010)

  1 Recalling his childhood among the Dagara, in Burkina Faso, author and psychologist Malidoma Patrice Somé remembers how freely children wandered into houses throughout the village. Somé explains that this “gives the child a very broad sense of belonging,” and that “everybody chips in to help raise the child.” Apart from the many obvious benefits to parents, Somé sees distinct psychological advantages for the children, saying, “It’s very rare that a child feels isolated or develops psychological problems; everyone is very aware of where he or she belongs.” 2 Though Somé’s account may sound like idealized memory, what he describes is still standard village life in most of rural Africa, where children are welcome to wander in and out of the homes of unrelated adults in villages. Though a mother’s love is no doubt unique, women (and some men) the world over are eager to coo over unrelated babies, not just their own—an eagerness common to other social primates, none of whom, by the way, are monogamous. This deeply felt, broadly shared willingness to care for unrelated children lives on in the modern world: the bureaucratic ordeal of adoption rivals or exceeds the stress and expense of childbirth, yet millions of couples eagerly pursue its uncertain rewards. Scientists focused only on the nuclear family miss the central role of alloparenting in our species. * Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mothers and Others, laments, “Infant-sharing in other primates and in various tribal societies has never been accorded center stage in the anthropological literature. Many people don’t even realize it goes on. Yet … the consequences of cooperative care—in terms of survival and biological fitness of mother and infant—turn out to be all to the good.” 3 Darwin entertained the radical possibility that the mother-child bond may have been less important to “barbarous” individuals than their bond with the greater group. Commenting on the customary use of familial terms like mother, father, son, and daughter in reference to all group members, he suggested, “The terms employed express a connection with the tribe alone, to the exclusion of the mother. It seems possible that the connection between the related members of the same barbarous tribe, exposed to all sorts of danger, might be so much more important, owing to the need of mutual protection and aid, than that between the mother and her child….”

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  The close-packed hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together, stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leant the whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back under the red belt she drew herself up, and arching her full bosom under the white smock, with a smart turn swung the fork in her arms, and flung the bundle of hay high on to the cart. Ivan, obviously doing his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labour, made haste, opening wide his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the cart. As she raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and straightening the red kerchief that had dropped forward over her white brow, not browned like her face by the sun, she crept under the cart to tie up the load. Ivan directed her how to fasten the cord to the cross-piece, and at something she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was to be seen vigorous, young, freshly awakened love. XII T HE load was tied on. Ivan jumped down and took the quiet, sleek horse by the bridle. The young wife flung the rake up on the load, and with a bold step, swinging her arms, she went to join the women, who were forming a ring for the haymakers' dance. Ivan drove off to the road and fell into line with the other loaded carts. The peasant women, with their rakes on their shoulders, gay with bright flowers, and chattering with ringing, merry voices, walked behind the hay-cart. One wild untrained female voice broke into a song, and sang it alone through a verse, and then the same verse was taken up and repeated by half a hundred strong healthy voices, of all sorts, coarse and fine, singing in unison. The women, all singing, began to come close to Levin, and he felt as though a storm were swooping down upon him with a thunder of merriment. The storm swooped down, enveloped him and the haycock on which he was lying, and the other haycocks, and the wagon-loads, and the whole meadow and distant fields all seemed to be shaking and singing to the measures of this wild merry song with its shouts and whistles and clapping. Levin felt envious of this health and mirthfulness; he longed to take part in the expression of this joy of life. But he could do nothing, and had to lie and look on and listen.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She knew what worried her husband. It was his unbelief. Although, if she had been asked whether she supposed that in the future life, if he did not believe, he would be damned, she would have had to admit that he would be damned, his unbelief did not cause her unhappiness. And she, confessing that for an unbeliever there can be no salvation, and loving her husband's soul more than anything in the world, thought with a smile of his unbelief, and told herself that he was absurd. 'What does he keep reading philosophy of some sort for all this year?' she wondered. 'If it's all written in those books, he can understand them. If it's all wrong, why does he read them? He says himself that he would like to believe. Then why is it he doesn't believe? Surely from his thinking so much? And he thinks so much from being solitary. He's always alone, alone. He can't talk about it all to us. I fancy he'll be glad of these visitors, especially Katavasov. He likes discussions with them,' she thought, and passed instantly to the consideration of where it would be more convenient to put Katavasov, to sleep alone or to share Sergey Ivanovitch's room. And then an idea suddenly struck her, which made her shudder and even disturb Mitya, who glanced severely at her. 'I do believe the laundress hasn't sent the washing yet, and all the best sheets are in use. If I don't see to it, Agafea Mihalovna will give Sergey Ivanovitch the wrong sheets,' and at the very idea of this the blood rushed to Kitty's face. 'Yes, I will arrange it,' she decided, and going back to her former thoughts, she remembered that some spiritual question of importance had been interrupted, and she began to recall what. 'Yes, Kostya, an unbeliever,' she thought again with a smile. 'Well, an unbeliever then! Better let him always be one than like Madame Stahl, or what I tried to be in those days abroad. No, he won't ever sham anything.' And a recent instance of his goodness rose vividly to her mind. A fortnight ago a penitent letter had come from Stepan Arkadyevitch to Dolly. He besought her to save his honour, to sell her estate to pay his debts. Dolly was in despair, she detested her husband, despised him, pitied him, resolved on a separation, resolved to refuse, but ended by agreeing to sell part of her property. After that, with an irrepressible smile of tenderness, Kitty recalled her husband's shamefaced embarrassment, his repeated, awkward efforts to approach the subject, and how at last, having thought of the one means of helping Dolly without wounding her pride, he had suggested to Kitty—what had not occurred to her before—that she should give up her share of the property.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'If it were only a passing fancy or a passion, if it were only this attraction—this mutual attraction (I can call it a mutual attraction), but I felt that it was in contradiction with the whole bent of my life—if I felt that in giving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocation and my duty . . . but it's not so. The only thing I can say against it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that I would remain faithful to her memory. That's the only thing I can say against my feeling…. That's a great thing,' Sergey Ivanovitch said to himself, feeling at the same time that this consideration had not the slightest importance for him personally, but would only perhaps detract from his romantic character in the eyes of others. 'But apart from that, however much I searched, I should never find anything to say against my feeling. If I were choosing by considerations of suitability alone, I could not have found anything better.' However many women and girls he thought of whom he knew, he could not think of a girl who united to such a degree all, positively all, the qualities he would wish to see in his wife. She had all the charm and freshness of youth, but she was not a child; and if she loved him, she loved him consciously as a woman ought to love; that was one thing. Another point: she was not only far from being worldly, but had an unmistakable distaste for worldly society, and at the same time she knew the world, and had all the ways of a woman of the best society, which were absolutely essential to Sergey Ivanovitch's conception of the woman who was to share his life. Thirdly: she was religious, and not like a child, unconsciously religious and good, as Kitty, for example, was, but her life was founded on religious principles. Even in trifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that he wanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case. She would owe everything to her husband, which was what he had always desired too for his future family life. And this girl, who united all these qualities, loved him. He was a modest man, but he could not help seeing it. And he loved her. There was one consideration against it—his age.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I am not afraid of him; I am afraid of death. Alexey, come here. I am in a hurry, because I've no time, I've not long left to live; the fever will begin directly and I shall understand nothing more. Now I understand, I understand it all, I see it all!' Alexey Alexandrovitch's wrinkled face wore an expression of agony; he took her by the hand and tried to say something, but he could not utter it; his lower lip quivered, but he still went on struggling with his emotion, and only now and then glanced at her. And each time he glanced at her, he saw her eyes gazing at him with such passionate and triumphant tenderness as he had never seen in them. 'Wait a minute, you don't know … stay a little, stay! . . .' She stopped, as though collecting her ideas. 'Yes,' she began; 'yes, yes, yes. This is what I wanted to say. Don't be surprised at me. I'm still the same . . . But there is another woman in me, I'm afraid of her, she loved that man, and I tried to hate you, and could not forget about her that used to be. I'm not that woman. Now I'm my real self, all myself. I'm dying now, I know I shall die, ask him. Even now I feel— see here, the weights on my feet, on my hands, on my fingers. My fingers—see how huge they are! But this will soon all be over . . . Only one thing I want: forgive me, forgive me quite. I'm terrible, but my nurse used to tell me; the holy martyr—what was her name? She was worse. And I'll go to Rome; there's a wilderness, and there I shall be no trouble to anyone, only I'll take Seryozha and the little one . . . No, you can't forgive me! I know, it can't be forgiven! No, no, go away, you're too good!' She held his hand in one burning hand, while she pushed him away with the other. The nervous agitation of Alexey Alexandrovitch kept increasing, and had by now reached such a point that he ceased to struggle with it. He suddenly felt that what he had regarded as nervous agitation was on the contrary a blissful spiritual condition that gave him all at once a new happiness he had never known. He did not think that the Christian law that he had been all his life trying to follow, enjoined on him to forgive and love his enemies; but a glad feeling of love and forgiveness for his enemies filled his heart. He knelt down, and laying his head in the curve of her arm, which burned him as with fire through the sleeve, he sobbed like a little child. She put her arm round his head, moved towards him, and with defiant pride lifted up her eyes.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  It was an evil action, of course, but it was the sole means of escape, and better not to brood over these fearful facts. One consolatory reflection upon her conduct had occurred to her at the first moment of the final rupture, and when now she recalled all the past, she remembered that one reflection. 'I have inevitably made that man wretched,' she thought; 'but I don't want to profit by his misery. I too am suffering, and shall suffer; I am losing what I prized above everything—I am losing my good name and my son. I have done wrong, and so I don't want happiness, I don't want a divorce, and shall suffer from my shame and the separation from my child.' But, however sin cerely Anna had meant to suffer, she was not suffering. Shame there was not. With the tact of which both had such a large share, they had succeeded in avoiding Russian ladies abroad, and so had never placed themselves in a false position, and everywhere they had met people who pretended that they perfectly understood their position, far better indeed than they did themselves. Separation from the son she loved— even that did not cause her anguish in these early days. The baby-girl — his child—was so sweet, and had so won Anna's heart, since she was all that was left her, that Anna rarely thought of her son. The desire for life, waxing stronger with recovered health, was so intense, and the conditions of life were so new and pleasant, that Anna felt unpardonably happy. The more she got to know Vronsky, the more she loved him. She loved him for himself, and for his love for her. Her complete ownership of him was a continual joy to her. His presence was always sweet to her. All the traits of his character, which she learned to know better and better, were unutterably dear to her. His appearance, changed by his civilian dress, was as fascinating to her as though she were some young girl in love. In everything he said, thought, and did, she saw something particularly noble and elevated. Her adoration of him alarmed her indeed; she sought and could not find in him anything not fine. She dared not show him her sense of her own insignificance beside him.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'I haven't got my skates,' Levin answered, marvelling at this boldness and ease in her presence, and not for one second losing sight of her, though he did not look at her. He felt as though the sun were coming near him. She was in a corner, and turning out her slender feet in their high boots with obvious timidity, she skated towards him. A boy in Russian dress, desperately waving his arms and bowed down to the ground, overtook her. She skated a little uncertainly; taking her hands out of the little muff, that hung on a cord, she held them ready for emergency, and looking towards Levin, whom she had recognised, she smiled at him and at her own fears. When she had got round the turn, she gave herself a push off with one foot, and skated straight up to Shtcherbatsky. Clutching at his arm, she nodded smiling to Levin. She was more splendid than he had imagined her. When he thought of her, he could call up a vivid picture of her to himself, especially the charm of that little fair head, so freely set on the shapely girlish shoulders, and so full of childish brightness and good-humour. The childishness of her expression, together with the delicate beauty of her figure, made up her special charm, and that he fully realised. But what always struck him in her as something unlooked for, was the expression of her eyes, soft, serene, and truthful, and above all, her smile, which always transported Levin to an enchanted world, where he felt himself softened and tender, as he remembered himself in some days of his early childhood. 'Have you been here long?' she said, giving him her hand. 'Thank you,' she added, as he picked up the handkerchief that had fallen out of her muff. 'I? I've not long . . . yesterday . . . I mean today . . . I arrived,' answered Levin, in his emotion not at once understanding her question. 'I was meaning to come and see you,' he said; and then, recollecting with what intention he was trying to see her, he was promptly overcome with confusion and blushed. 'I didn't know you could skate, and skate so well.' She looked at him earnestly, as though wishing to make out the cause of his confusion. 'Your praise is worth having. The tradition is kept up here that you are the best of skaters,' she said, with her little black-gloved hand brushing a grain of hoar-frost off her muff. 'Yes, I used once to skate with passion; I wanted to reach perfection. 'You do everything with passion, I think,' she said, smiling. 'I should so like to see how you skate. Put on skates, and let us skate together.' 'Skate together! Can that be possible?' thought Levin, gazing at her.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  All the long way to his brother's, Levin vividly recalled all the facts familiar to him of his brother Nikolay's life. He remembered how his brother, while at the university, and for a year afterwards, had, in spite of the jeers of his companions, lived like a monk, strictly observing all religious rites services, and fasts, and avoiding every sort of pleasure, especially women. And afterwards, how he had all at once broken out: he had associated with the most horrible people, and rushed into the most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the scandal over a boy, whom he had taken from the country to bring up, and, in a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that proceedings were brought against him for unlawfully wounding. Then he recalled the scandal with a sharper, to whom he had lost money, and given a promissory note, and against whom he had himself lodged a complaint, asserting that he had cheated him. (This was the money Sergey Ivanovitch had paid.) Then he remembered how he had spent a night in the lock-up for disorderly conduct in the street. He remembered the shameful proceedings he had tried to get up against his brother Sergey Ivanovich, accusing him of not having paid him his share of his mother's fortune, and the last scandal, when he had gone to a western province in an official capacity, and there had got into trouble for assaulting a village elder. . . . It was all horribly disgusting, yet to Levin it appeared not at all in the same disgusting light as it inevitably would to those who did not know Nikolay, did not know all his story, did not know his heart. Levin remembered that when Nikolay had been in the devout stage, the period of fasts and monks and church services, when he was seeking in religion a support and a curb for his passionate temperament, everyone, far from encouraging him, had jeered at him, and he, too, with the others. They had teased him, called him Noah, and monk; and, when he had broken out, no one had helped him, but everyone had turned away from him with horror and disgust. Levin felt that, in spite of all the ugliness of his life, his brother Nikolay, in his soul, in the very depths of his soul, was no more in the wrong than the people who despised him. He was not to blame for having been born with his unbridled temperament and his somehow limited intelligence. But he had always wanted to be good. 'I will tell him everything, without reserve, and I will make him speak without reserve too, and I'll show him that I love him, and so understand him,' Levin resolved to himself, as, towards eleven o'clock, he reached the hotel of which he had the address. 'At the top, 12 and 13,' the porter answered Levin's inquiry. 'At home?'

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Yes, but there's not so much of that actual fact about her as about me. I can see that he would never have cared for me. She is altogether spiritual.' 'Oh no, he is so fond of you, and I am always so glad when my people like you… .' 'Yes, he's very nice to me; but . . . ' 'It's not as it was with poor Nikolay . . . you really cared for each other,' Levin finished. 'Why not speak of him?' he added. 'I sometimes blame myself for not; it ends in one's forgetting. Ah, how terrible and dear he was! . . . Yes, what were we talking about?' Levin said, after a pause. 'You think he can't fall in love,' said Kitty, translating into her own language. 'It's not so much that he can't fall in love,' Levin said, smiling, 'but he has not the weakness necessary. . . . I've always envied him, and even now, when I'm so happy, I still envy him.' 'You envy him for not being able to fall in love?' 'I envy him for being better than me,' said Levin. 'He does not live for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty. And that's why he can be calm and contented.' 'And you?' Kitty asked, with an ironical and loving smile. She could never have explained the chain of thought that made her smile; but the last link in it was that her husband, in exalting his brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere. Kitty knew that this insincerity came from his love for his brother, from his sense of shame at being too happy, and above all from his unflagging craving to be better —she loved it in him, and so she smiled. 'And you? What are you dissatisfied with?' she asked, with the same smile. Her disbelief in his self-dissatisfaction delighted him, and unconsciously he tried to draw her into giving utterance to the grounds of her disbelief. 'I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself . . . ' he said. 'Why, how can you be dissatisfied with yourself if you are happy?' 'Well, how shall I say? . . . In my heart I really care for nothing whatever but that you should not stumble—see? Oh, but really you mustn't skip about like that!' he cried, breaking off to scold her for too agile a movement in stepping over a branch that lay in the path. 'But when I think about myself, and compare myself with others, especially with my brother, I feel I'm a poor creature.' 'But in what way?' Kitty pursued with the same smile. 'Don't you top work for others?

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Although he said nothing to her that he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his mode of behaviour in relation to Kitty had a definite character, that it is courting young girls with no intention of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil actions common amongst brilliant young men such as he was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his discovery. If he could have heard what her parents were saying that evening, if he could have put himself at the point of view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He could not believe that what gave such great and delicate pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry. Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellent, and, above all, ridiculous. But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys' that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and ought to be taken he could not imagine. 'What is so exquisite,' he thought, as he returned from the Shtcherbatskys', carrying away with him, as he always did, a delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a new feeling of tenderness at her love for him—'what is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And how secretly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great deal of good in me. Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said: "Indeed I do . . ." 'Well, what then? Oh nothing. It's good for me, and good for her.' And he began wondering where to finish the evening.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  What about your cooperative settlement, and your work on the estate, and your book? . . . ' 'Oh, but I feel, and particularly just now—it's your fault,' he said, pressing her hand—'that all that doesn't count. I do it in a way halfheartedly. If I could care for all that as I care for you! . . . Instead of that, I do it in these days like a task that is set me.' 'Well, what would you say about papa?' asked Kitty. 'Is he a poor creature then, as he does nothing for the public good?' 'He?—no! But then one must have the simplicity, the straightforwardness, the goodness of your father: and I haven't got that. I do nothing, and I fret about it. It's all your doing: Before there was you— and this too,' he added with a glance towards her waist that she understood—'I put all my energies into work; now I can't, and I'm ashamed; I do it just as though it were a task set me, I'm pretending….' 'Well, but would you like to change this minute with Sergey Ivanovitch?' said Kitty. 'Would you like to do this work for the general good, and to love the task set you, as he does, and nothing else?' 'Of course not,' said Levin. 'But I'm so happy that I don't understand anything. So you think he'll make her an offer today?' he added after a brief silence. 'I think so, and I don't think so. Only, I'm awfully anxious for it. Here, wait a minute.' She stooped down and picked a wild camomile at the edge of the path. 'Come, count: he does propose, he doesn't,' she said, giving him the flower. 'He does, he doesn't,' said Levin, tearing off the white petals. 'No, no!' Kitty, snatching at his hand, stopped him. She had been watching his fingers with interest. 'You picked off two.' 'Oh, but see, this little one shan't count to make up,' said Levin, tearing off a little half-grown petal. 'Here's the wagonette overtaking us.' 'Aren't you tired, Kitty?' called the princess. 'Not in the least.' 'If you are you can get in, as the horses are quiet and walking.' But it was not worth while to get in, they were quite near the place, and all walked on together.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Left alone, Alexey Alexandrovitch looked down, collecting his thoughts, then looked casually about him and walked towards the door, where he hoped to meet Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'And how strong they all are, how sound physically,' thought Alexey Alexandrovitch, looking at the powerfully built gentleman of the bedchamber with his well-combed, perfumed whiskers, and at the red neck of the prince, pinched by his tight uniform. He had to pass them on his way. 'Truly is it said that all in the world is evil,' he thought, with another sidelong glance at the calves of the gentleman of the bedchamber. Moving forward deliberately, Alexey Alexandrovitch bowed with his customary air of weariness and dignity to the gentleman who had been talking about him, and looking towards the door, his eyes sought Countess Lidia Ivanovna. 'Ah! Alexey Alexandrovitch!' said the little old man, with a malicious light in his eyes, at the moment when Karenin was on a level with them, and was nodding with a frigid gesture, 'I haven't congratulated you yet,' said the old man, pointing to his newly received ribbon. 'Thank you,' answered Alexey Alexandrovitch. 'What an exquisite day today,' he added, laying emphasis in his peculiar way on the word exquisite. That they laughed at him he was well aware, but he did not expect anything but hostility from them; he was used to that by now. Catching sight of the yellow shoulders of Lidia Ivanovna jutting out above her corset, and her fine pensive eyes bidding him to her, Alexey Alexandrovitch smiled, revealing untarnished white teeth, and went towards her. Lidia Ivanovna's dress had cost her great pains, as indeed all her dresses had done of late. Her aim in dress was now quite the reverse of that she had pursued thirty years before. Then her desire had been to adorn herself with something, and the more adorned the better. Now, on the contrary, she was perforce decked out in a way so inconsistent with her age and her figure, that her one anxiety was to contrive that the contrast between these adornments and her own exterior should not be too appalling. And as far as Alexey Alexandrovitch was concerned she succeeded, and was in his eyes attractive. For him she was the one island not only of goodwill to him, but of love in the midst of the sea of hostility and jeering that surrounded him. Passing through rows of ironical eyes, he was drawn as naturally to her loving glance as a plant to the sun. 'I congratulate you,' she said to him, her eyes on his ribbon. Suppressing a smile of pleasure, he shrugged his shoulders, closing his eyes, as though to say that that could not be a source of joy to him.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  Her lips trembled so that for a long while she could say nothing. 'Yes, you have conquered me, and I am yours,' she said at last, pressing his hands to her bosom. 'So it had to be,' he said. 'So long as we live, it must be so. I know it now.' 'That's true,' she said, getting whiter and whiter, and embracing his head. 'Still there is something terrible in it after all that has happened.' 'It will all pass, it will all pass; we shall be so happy. Our love, if it could be stronger, will be strengthened by there being something terrible in it,' he said, lifting his head and parting his strong teeth in a smile. And she could not but respond with a smile—not to his words, but to the love in his eyes. She took his hand and stroked her chilled cheeks and cropped head with it. 'I don't know you with this short hair. You've grown so pretty. A boy. But how pale you are!' 'Yes, I'm very weak,' she said, smiling. And her lips began trembling again. 'We'll go to Italy; you will get strong,' he said. 'Can it be possible we could be like husband and wife, alone, your family with you?' she said, looking close into his eyes. 'It only seems strange to me that it can ever have been otherwise.' 'Stiva says that he has agreed to everything, but I can't accept his generosity,' she said, looking dreamily past Vronsky's face. 'I don't want a divorce; it's all the same to me now. Only I don't know what he will decide about Seryozha.' He could not conceive how at this moment of their meeting she could remember and think of her son, of divorce. What did it all matter? 'Don't speak of that, don't think of it,' he said, turning her hand in his, and trying to draw her attention to him; but still she did not look at him. 'Oh, why didn't I die! it would have been better,' she said, and silent tears flowed down both her cheeks; but she tried to smile, so as not to wound him. To decline the flattering and dangerous appointment at Tashkend would have been, Vronsky had till then considered, disgraceful and impossible.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  XXIII T HE Countess Lidia Ivanovna had, as a very young and sentimental girl, been married to a wealthy man of high rank, a very good-natured, jovial, and extremely dissipated rake. Two months after marriage her husband abandoned her, and her impassioned protestations of affection he met with a sarcasm and even hostility that people knowing the count's good heart, and seeing no defects in the sentimental Lidia, were at a loss to explain. Though they were divorced and lived apart, yet whenever the husband met the wife, he invariably behaved to her with the same malignant irony, the cause of which was incomprehensible. Countess Lidia Ivanovna had long given up being in love with her husband, but from that time she had never given up being in love with someone. She was in love with several people at once, both men and women; she had been in love with almost everyone who had been particularly distinguished in any way. She was in love with all the new princes and princesses who married into the Imperial family; she had been in love with a high dignitary of the Church, a vicar, and a parish priest; she had been in love with a journalist, three Slavophils, the Komissarov, with a minister, a doctor, an English missionary, and Karenin. All these passions, constantly waning or growing more ardent, did not prevent her from keeping up the most extended and complicated relations with the court and fashionable society. But from the time that after Karenin's trouble she took him under her special protection, from the time that she set to work in Karenin's household looking after his welfare, she felt that all her other attachments were not the real thing, and that she was now genuinely in love, and with no one but Karenin. The feeling she now experienced for him seemed to her stronger than any of her former feelings. Analysing her feeling, and comparing it with former passions, she distinctly perceived that she would not have been in love with Komissarov if he had not saved the life of the Tsar, that she would not have been in love with Ristitch-Kudzhitsky if there had been no Slavonic question, but that she loved Karenin for himself, for his lofty, uncomprehended soul, for the sweet —to her—high notes of his voice, for his drawling intonation, his weary eyes, his character, and his soft white hands with their swollen veins. She was not simply overjoyed at meeting him, but she sought in his face signs of the impression she was making on him. She tried to please him, not by her words only, but in her whole person.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with resolute steps walked into the drawing-room, where she found, as usual, waiting for her, she coffee, Seryozha, and his governess. Seryozha, all in white, with his back and head bent, was standing at a table under a looking-glass, and with an expression of intense concentration which she knew well, and in which he resembled his father, he was doing something to the flowers he carried. The governess had a particularly severe expression. Seryozha screamed shrilly, as he often did, 'Ah, mamma!' and stopped, hesitating whether to go to greet his mother and put down the flowers, or to finish making the wreath and go with the flowers. The governess, after saying good-morning, began a long and detailed account of Seryozha's naughtiness, but Anna did not hear her; she was considering whether she would take her with her or not. 'No, I won't take her,' she decided. 'I'll go alone with my child.' 'Yes, it's very wrong,' said Anna, and taking her son by the shoulder she looked at him, not severely, but with a timid glance that bewildered and delighted the boy, and she kissed him. 'Leave him to me,' she said to the astonished governess, and not letting go of her son, she sat down at the table, where coffee was set ready for her. 'Mamma ! I . . . I . . . didn't…' he said, trying to make out from her expression what was in store for him in regard to the peaches. 'Seryozha,' she said, as soon as the governess had left the room, 'that was wrong, but you'll never do it again, will you? . . . You love me?' She felt that the tears were coming into her eyes. 'Can I help loving him?' she said to herself, looking deeply into his scared and at the same time delighted eyes. 'And can he ever join his father in punishing me? Is it possible he will not feel for me?' Tears were already flowing down her face, and to hide them she got up abruptly and almost ran out on to the terrace. After the thunder-showers of the last few days, cold, bright weather had set in. The air was cold in the bright sun that filtered through the freshly washed leaves. She shivered, both from the cold and from the inward horror which had clutched her with fresh force in the open air. 'Run along, run along to Mariette,' she said to Seryozha, who had followed her out, and she began walking up and down on the straw matting of the terrace. 'Can it be that they won't forgive me, won't understand how it all couldn't be helped?' she said to herself.

• From Anna Karenina (1877)

  'Remember that I have forbidden you to utter that word, that hateful word,' said Anna, with a shudder. But at once she 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. 'I've 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 Kitty's forgiveness,' she said. 'You don't 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. 'Don't you know that you're all my life to me? But I know no peace, and I can't give it you; all myself—and love . . . yes. I can't 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 there's 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. 'It's come!' he thought in ecstasy. 'When I was beginning to despair, and it seemed there would be no end—it's 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—that's 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 don't want to drive you away.' 'Only don't change anything, leave everything as it is,' he said in a shaky voice. 'Here's your husband.' At that instant Alexey Alexandrovitch did in fact walk into the room with his calm, awkward gait.