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 to say. Anna's fits of jealousy were becoming more and more frequent, and, however much he tried to conceal it, these scenes made him grow cool toward her, although he knew that the cause of the jealousy was her very love for him. How many times had he not said to himself that happiness existed for him only in this love; and now that she loved him as only a woman can love for whom love outweighs all other treasures in life, happiness seemed farther off than when he had followed her from Moscow. Then he considered himself unhappy, but happiness was in sight; now he felt that their highest happiness was in the past. She was entirely different from what she had been when he first saw her. Both morally and physically she had changed for the worse. The beauty of her form was gone, and when she spoke about the French actress a wicked expression came over her face which spoiled it. He looked at her as a man looks at a flower which he has plucked and which has faded, and he finds it hard to recognize the beauty for the sake of which he has plucked it and despoiled it. And yet he felt that at the time when his passion was more violent, he might, if he had earnestly desired it, have torn his love out of his heart; but now, at the very time when it seemed to him that he felt no love for her, he knew that the tie that bound him to her was indissoluble.

"Well, well, tell me what you have to say about the prince," replied Anna. "I have driven away the demon, I have driven him away," she added. Between themselves they called her jealousy the demon. "You began to tell me something about the prince. Why was it so disagreeable to you?"

"Oh, it was unbearable," replied Vronsky, trying to pick up the thread of his thought again. "The prince does n't improve on close acquaintance. I can only compare him to one of those highly fed animals which take first prizes at exhibitions," he added, with an air of vexation, which seemed to interest Anna.

"No, but how? Is he not a cultivated man, who has seen much of the world?"