Sentence No. 62 · 28 May 2026
The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family.
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy — Anna Karenina (1878) · Read it at Project Gutenberg
What holds this sentence together
Notice how the clauses nest: "that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl" is the object clause, and "who had been a governess in their family" is a relative clause modifying "girl" — always the second, inner layer.
How it appears in Sentle
On Sentle this sentence arrives in 6 pieces, shuffled, with the lines that lead up to it for context. The novel's opening line has just declared that all happy families are alike. Putting it back in the author’s order is the puzzle — and the order is rarely arbitrary, which is what the note above is about.
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