Anna Karenina — Chapter 204 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
À dix heures, le vieux prince, Serge Ivanovitch et Stépan Arkadiévitch étaient chez Lévine et, après avoir parlé de la jeune maman, causaient d’autre chose. The old Prince Sergyeï Ivanovitch and Stepan Arkadyevitch met at Levin's the next morning, about ten o'clock, and after they talked about the little mother, they began to converse about irrelevant topics. Lévine les écoutait ; ces conversations, malgré lui, lui rappelaient l’événement qui s’était achevé ce matin, et ce qu’il était auparavant, comme si un siècle s’était écoulé depuis. Levin listened to them, and involuntarily remembering what had taken place, what had been going on that morning, he also remembered what he himself had been but a few hours before.
C'était comme si un siècle s'était écoulé depuis. It was as if a hundred years had passed since then.
Il se sentait sur une hauteur inaccessible d’où il descendait soigneusement pour ne pas blesser ses interlocuteurs. He felt that he was on some unattainable height from which he endeavored to descend to their level, that he might not offend those with whom he was talking. Il causait et sans cesse pensait à sa femme, aux détails de son état présent, à son fils, tâchant de s’habituer à la pensée de son existence. While talking about indifferent things, he was thinking of his wife, of the state of her health, and of his son, to the idea of whose existence he was trying to accustom himself. La femme, qui, depuis son mariage, avait pris pour lui une signification nouvelle, inconnue, maintenant, dans sa pensée, s’élevait à une hauteur qu’il jugeait inaccessible pour lui. The whole world of womanhood, which had taken on a new and incomprehensible significance to him, even after his marriage, occupied such a lofty place, that he could not begin to realize it. Il écoutait le récit du dîner de la veille au cercle et pensait : « Que devient-elle maintenant ? S’est-elle endormie ? He heard the men talking about their dinner at the club; but he was thinking, "What is she doing now? Comment va-t-elle ? Que pense-t-elle ? What is in her mind? Est-ce que mon fils, Dmitri, pleure ? Is the son Dmitri crying?" » Et au milieu de la conversation, au milieu d’une phrase, il sortit précipitamment de la chambre. And, in the midst of the conversation, in the midst of a sentence, he sprang up, and left the room.
« Faites-moi savoir si je puis la voir, » dit le vieux prince. "Send word down if I may see her," said the old prince.