the love of anna karenina and vronski ended with their first sexual encounter, after which it became nothing but a story of its own disintegration, and we hardly know why: had they made love so poorly? or, on the contrary, had they made love so beautifully that the intensity of their pleasure released a sense of guilt? no matter how we answer, we always reach the same conclusion: there was no great love after precoital love, and there couldn’t be.
— milan kundera, immortality
