Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina

PART 8 Chapter 9 (continued)

He must escape from this power. And the means of escape every man had in his own hands. He had but to cut short this dependence on evil. And there was one means--death.

And Levin, a happy father and husband, in perfect health, was several times so near suicide that he hid the cord that he might not be tempted to hang himself, and was afraid to go out with his gun for fear of shooting himself.

But Levin did not shoot himself, and did not hang himself; he went on living.