‘No, because he scorned me,’ said Kitty in a trembling voice. ‘Don’t say anything! Please, don’t say anything!’
‘But who told you that? No one said that. I’m sure he was in love with you, and was still in love, but …’
‘Oh, I find all this commiseration worse than anything else!’ Kitty cried out, suddenly becoming angry. She turned round on her chair, blushed, and started moving her fingers rapidly as she gripped the buckle of a belt she was holding, first with one hand and then with the other. Dolly was familiar with her sister’s habit of switching from one hand to the other when she lost her temper; she knew that Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying many unnecessary and unpleasant things in the heat of the moment, so Dolly wanted to calm her down; but it was too late.
‘Just what is it you want to make me feel—what?’ said Kitty rapidly. ‘That I was in love with someone who did not want to know me, and that I’m dying of love for him? And it is my own sister telling me this, who thinks that … that … that she’s commiserating with me! … I don’t want all this pity and pretence!’
‘Kitty, you’re being unfair.’
‘Why are you tormenting me?’
‘But on the contrary, I … I can see you’re grieving …’
But in her frenzied state Kitty did not hear her.
‘There’s nothing for me to be distressed or comforted about. I have sufficient pride that I would never allow myself to love a man who does not love me.’
‘But I’m not saying that … There’s just one thing, and you must tell me the truth,’ said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand: ‘Tell me, did Levin speak to you? …’
Mention of Levin seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestiges of self-control; she leapt up from her chair, threw the buckle on the floor, and making rapid gestures with her hands, she burst out:
‘Why do you have to bring Levin into this too? I don’t understand, why do you have to torment me? I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, that I have my pride, and I will never, ever do what you are doing—go back to a man who has been unfaithful to you, who has fallen for another woman. I don’t understand it, I just don’t understand it! You might be able to, but I can’t!’
She glanced at her sister after saying these words, and when she saw that Dolly was silent, her head bowed in sadness, Kitty sat down by the door instead of leaving the room as she had intended, buried her face in her handkerchief, and bowed her head.
The silence lasted for a couple of minutes. Dolly was thinking about herself. The pain of her humiliation, of which she was always conscious, became particularly acute when her sister reminded her of it. She had not expected such cruelty from her sister, and she was angry with her. But suddenly she heard the rustle of a dress and with it the sound of muffled sobbing, then someone’s arms embraced her neck from below. Kitty was on her knees before her.
‘Dollinka, I am so, so unhappy!’ she whispered contritely.
And the dear, tear-stained face buried itself in the skirt of Darya Alexandrovna’s dress.
It was as if tears were the essential lubricant without which the machinery of mutual relations between the two sisters could not operate effectively—after the tears the sisters did not talk about what preoccupied them, but they understood each other even though they were talking about other things. Kitty understood that she had deeply wounded her poor sister with those words she had uttered in a fit of pique about her husband’s infidelity and her humiliation, but that she was forgiven. For her part, Dolly understood all that she had wanted to know; she confirmed that her suppositions were correct, that Kitty’s grief, her inconsolable grief, was due precisely to the fact that Levin had proposed to her and she had refused him, while Vronsky had deceived her, and that she was ready to love Levin and hate Vronsky. Kitty did not say a word of this; she talked only about her state of mind.
‘I’m not grieving,’ she said after she had calmed down, ‘but I wonder if you can understand how horrible, disgusting, and coarse everything has become for me, and above all how disgusting I have become to myself. You can’t imagine what horrible thoughts I have about everything.’
‘But what horrible thoughts can you possibly have?’ asked Dolly, smiling.
‘The most utterly horrible, crude ones; I can’t tell you. It’s not sadness or boredom, but something much worse. It’s as if everything that was good in me has been hidden away, and only the most horrible things have remained. Well, how can I put it?’ she continued, seeing the look of bewilderment in her sister’s eyes. ‘Papa started talking to me just now … It feels to me that he just thinks I need to get married. Mama takes me to a balclass="underline" it feels to me that she is only taking me so she can marry me off as soon as possible and get rid of me. I know that’s not true, but I can’t drive out these thoughts. I can’t bear to see those so-called eligible bachelors. It feels like they’re sizing me up. Going somewhere in a ball-gown was sheer pleasure for me before, and I used to admire myself, but now I feel ashamed and awkward. Well, what do you expect! The doctor … Well …’
Kitty faltered; she wanted to go on to say that ever since this change had taken place in her, she had found Stepan Arkadyich completely odious, and that she could not see him without having the most crude and hideous thoughts.
‘Well, yes, I see everything in the coarsest, most loathsome light,’ she went on. ‘That’s my illness. Maybe it will pass.’
‘But you shouldn’t think …’
‘I can’t help it. I only feel all right when I am with the children, only at your house.’
‘It’s a pity you can’t spend time with me.’
‘No, I’m going to come. I’ve had scarlet fever, and I’ll persuade Maman to let me.’
Kitty insisted on having her way and went to stay at her sister’s, and she looked after the children throughout the entire bout of scarlet fever, which it indeed turned out to be. The two sisters brought all six children successfully through it, but Kitty’s health did not improve, and in Lent* the Shcherbatskys went abroad.
4
THERE is essentially just one circle in Petersburg high society; everybody knows one another and even calls on one another. But this large circle has its subdivisions. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends and close ties in three different circles. One circle was the official circle associated with her husband’s work, consisting of his colleagues and subordinates, who in the social environment were connected and divided in the most varied and arbitrary way. Anna found it difficult now to recall the feeling of almost pious reverence she initially had towards these individuals. She now knew them all in the way that people know each another in a provincial town; she knew their habits and their weaknesses, and whose shoe pinched which foot; she knew their relations with one another and with the powers that be; she knew who sided with whom, and how and why, and who agreed and disagreed with whom, and why; but this male, government circle could never have interested her, despite Countess Lydia Ivanovna’s inducements, and she avoided it.
Another little circle close to Anna was the one through which Alexey Alexandrovich had built his career. At the centre of this little circle was the Countess Lydia Ivanovna. This was a little circle of elderly, unattractive, virtuous, and pious women and clever, learned, ambitious men. One of the clever men who belonged to this little circle called it ‘the conscience of Petersburg society’. Alexey Alexandrovich greatly valued this little circle, and Anna, who was so good at getting on with everyone, had also found friends in this little circle during the early days of her Petersburg life. But now, after returning from Moscow, she found this little circle unbearable. It seemed to her that they and she were all putting on a show, and she started to feel so bored and ill at ease in their company that she called on Countess Lydia Ivanovna as little as possible.