something totally different

Those of you who are deeply in love must find this passage that am about to share in Anna Karenina deeply amusing. Levin has been married three months to Kitty. He comes home one evening to find her in low spirits with quite an attitude. Tolstoy, the very great narrator tells us

[…] It was only then, for the first time, that he clearly understood what he had not understood when he led her out of the church after the wedding. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. He felt this from the agonizing sensation of division that he experienced at that instant. He was offended for the first instant, but that very same second he felt that he could not be offended by her, that she was himself. He felt for the first moment as a man feels when, having suddenly received a violent blow from behind, he turns around, angry and eager to avenge himself, to look for his antagonist, and finds that it is he himself who has accidentally struck himself, that there is no one to be angry with, and that he must put up with and try to soothe the pain.

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