But the more time that passed, the more clearly he saw that, natural as this situation was for him now, he would not be allowed to remain in it. He felt that, besides the good spiritual force that guided his soul, there was another force, crude and equally powerful, if not more so, that guided his life, and that this force would not give him the humble peace he desired. He felt that everybody looked at him with questioning surprise, not understanding him and expecting something from him. In particular, he felt the precariousness and unnaturalness of his relations with his wife.
[…]
'I am very grateful for your confidence, but …' he said, feeling with embarrassment and vexation that what he could resolve easily and clearly in himself, he could not discuss in front of Princess Tverskoy, who was for him an embodiment of that crude force which was to guide his life in the eyes of the world and which prevented him from giving himself to his feeling of love and forgiveness. He stopped, looking at Princess Tverskoy.
—Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
(Part Four, XIX)
tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky
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