Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
|
her clasp on the ground, she gesticulated rapidly with
her hands and said:
"Why bring Levin in too? I cant understand what you want to
torment me for. Ive told you, and I say it again, that I have
some pride, and never, _never_ would I do as youre doing--go back
to a man whos deceived you, who has cared for another woman. I
cant understand it! You may, but I cant!"
And saying these words she glanced at her sister, and seeing that
Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of
running out of the room as she had meant to do, sat down near the
door, and hid her face in her handkerchief.
The silence lasted for two minutes: Dolly was thinking of
herself. That humiliation of which she was always conscious came
back to her with a peculiar bitterness when her sister reminded
her of it. She had not looked for such cruelty in her sister,
and she was angry with her. But suddenly she heard the rustle of
a skirt, and with it the sound of heart-rending, smothered
sobbing, and felt arms about her neck. Kitty was on her knees
before her.
"Dolinka, I am so, so wretched!" she whispered penitently. And
the sweet face covered with tears hid itself in Darya
Alexandrovnas skirt.
As though tears were the indispensable oil, without which the
machinery of mutual confidence could not run smoothly between the
two sisters, the sisters after their tears talked, not of what
was uppermost in their minds, but, though they talked of outside
matters, they understood each other. Kitty knew that the words
she had uttered in anger about her husbands infidelity and her
humiliating position had cut her poor sister to the heart, but
that she had forgiven her. Dolly for her part knew all she had
wanted to find out. She felt certain that her surmises were
correct; that Kittys misery, her inconsolable misery, was due
precisely to the fact that Levin had made her an offer and she
had refused him, and Vronsky had deceived her, and that she was
fully prepared to love Levin and to detest Vronsky. Kitty said
not a word of that; she talked of nothing but her spiritual
condition.
"I have nothing to make me miserable," she said, getting calmer;
"but can you understand that everything has become hateful,
loathsome, coarse to me, and I myself most of all? You cant
imagine what loathsome thoughts I have about everything."
"Why, whatever loathsome thoughts can you have?" asked Dolly,
smiling.
"The most utterly loathsome and coarse: I cant tell you. Its
not unhappiness, or low spirits, but much worse. As though
everything that was good in me was all hidden away, and nothing
was left but the most loathsome. Come, how am I to tell you?"
she went on, seeing the puzzled look in her sisters eyes.
"Father began saying something to me just now.... It seems to me
he thinks all I want is to be married. Mother takes me to a
ball: it seems to me she only takes me to get me married off as
soon as may be, and be rid of me. I know its not the truth, but
I cant drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call
them--I cant bear to see them. It seems to me theyre taking
stock of me and summing me up. In old days to go anywhere in a
ball dress was a simple joy to me, I admired myself; now I feel
ashamed and awkward. And then! The doctor.... Then..." Kitty
hesitated; she wanted to say further that ever since this change
had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadyevitch had become
insufferably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him
without the grossest and most hideous conceptions rising before
her imagination.
"Oh, well, everything presents itself to me, in the coarsest,
most loathsome light," she went on. "Thats my illness. Perhaps
it will pass off."
"But you mustnt think about it."
"I cant help it. Im never happy except with the children at
your house."
"What a pity you cant be with me!"
"Oh, yes, Im coming. Ive had scarlatina, and Ill persuade
mamma to let me."
Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her
sisters and nursed the children all through the scarlatina, for
scarlatina it turned out to be. The two sisters brought all the
six
Anna Karenina page 70 Anna Karenina page 72
|
