15 February 2025

The single best sentence in Anna Karenina

 "Then it was that he first clearly understood what he did not realize when leading her out of the church after the wedding: that she was not only very close to him but that he could not now tell where she ended and he began." Volume II, Part V, Chapter XIV.

I suppose that after 20 or so years of marriage I would have understood this line. But after forty six years I can begin to relate to it. Begin. Deeper than understanding. 

It was well worth a thousand pages of this great novel to find this little jewel of prose.