Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 35
“Everything, everything!” Kitty assented.
“Well, there’s really nothing of any consequence; only that Mihail Alexeyevitch”
(that was the artist’s name) “had meant to leave earlier, and now he doesn’t want to
go away,” said Varenka, smiling.
“Well, well!” Kitty urged impatiently, looking darkly at Varenka.
“Well, and for some reason Anna Pavlovna told him that he didn’t want to go
because you are here. Of course, that was nonsense; but there was a dispute over
it–over you. You know how irritable these sick people are.”
Kitty, scowling more than ever, kept silent, and Varenka went on speaking alone,
trying to soften or soothe her, and seeing a storm coming–she did not know whether
of tears or of words.
“So you’d better not go.... You understand; you won’t be offended?...”
“And it serves me right! And it serves me right!” Kitty cried quickly, snatching
the parasol out of Varenka’s hand, and looking past her friend’s face.
Varenka felt inclined to smile, looking at her childish fury, but she was afraid of
wounding her.
“How does it serve you right? I don’t understand,” she said.
“It serves me right, because it was all sham; because it was all done on purpose,
and not from the heart. What business had I to interfere with outsiders? And so it’s
come about that I’m a cause of quarrel, and that I’ve done what nobody asked me to
do. Because it was all a sham! a sham! a sham!...”
“A sham! with what object?” said Varenka gently.
“Oh, it’s so idiotic! so hateful! There was no need whatever for me.... Nothing but
sham!” she said, opening and shutting the parasol.
“But with what object?”
“To seem better to people, to myself, to God; to deceive everyone. No! now I won’t
descend to that. I’ll be bad; but anyway not a liar, a cheat.”
“But who is a cheat?” said Varenka reproachfully. “You speak as if...”
But Kitty was in one of her gusts of fury, and she would not let her finish.
“I don’t talk about you, not about you at all. You’re perfection. Yes, yes, I know
you’re all perfection; but what am I to do if I’m bad? This would never have been if
I weren’t bad. So let me be what I am. I won’t be a sham. What have I to do with
Anna Pavlovna? Let them go their way, and me go mine. I can’t be different.... And
yet it’s not that, it’s not that.”
“What is not that?” asked Varenka in bewilderment.
“Everything. I can’t act except from the heart, and you act from principle. I liked
you simply, but you most likely only wanted to save me, to improve me.”
“You are unjust,” said Varenka.
“But I’m not speaking of other people, I’m speaking of myself.”
“Kitty,” they heard her mother’s voice, “come here, show papa your necklace.”
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