Finally Finished

I finally finished Anna Karenina tonight. It lost me there in the middle, but came around in the end--mostly.

"He only knew and felt that what was happening was similar to what had happened the year before…on the deathbed of his brother….Only that was sorrow and this [birth] was joy. But that sorrow and this joy were equally beyond the usual conditions of life: they were like openings in that usual life through which something higher became visible. And as in that case, what was now being accomplished came harshly, painfully, incomprehensibly, and while watching it the soul soared, as then, to heights it had never known before, at which reason could not keep up with it." (p. 640-641)

"If goodness has a cause, it is no longer goodness, if it has a consequence--a reward, it is also not goodness. Therefore, goodness is beyond the chain of cause and effect." (p. 715)

Someday I'd like to know a language well enough to read the original work and the translation to compare the beauty and nuances of the word choice. Russian is definitely not going to be that language.