Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 2
so? Anything’s better than endless misery, disgrace, unfaithfulness!” With despair
in his heart and bitter anger against all men, against himself, against her, he went
out of the hotel and drove to her house.
He found her in one of the back rooms. She was sitting on a chest and making
some arrangements with her maid, sorting over heaps of dresses of different colors,
spread on the backs of chairs and on the floor.
“Ah!” she cried, seeing him, and beaming with delight. “Kostya! Konstantin
Dmitrievitch!” (These latter days she used these names almost alternately.) “I didn’t
expect you! I’m going through my wardrobe to see what’s for whom...”
“Oh! that’s very nice!” he said gloomily, looking at the maid.
“You can go, Dunyasha, I’ll call you presently,” said Kitty. “Kostya, what’s the
matter?” she asked, definitely adopting this familiar name as soon as the maid had
gone out. She noticed his strange face, agitated and gloomy, and a panic came over
her.
“Kitty! I’m in torture. I can’t suffer alone,” he said with despair in his voice,
standing before her and looking imploringly into her eyes. He saw already from her
loving, truthful face, that nothing could come of what he had meant to say, but yet
he wanted her to reassure him herself. “I’ve come to say that there’s still time. This
can all be stopped and set right.”
“What? I don’t understand. What is the matter?”
“What I have said a thousand times over, and can’t help thinking ...that I’m not
worthy of you. You couldn’t consent to marry me. Think a little. You’ve made a
mistake. Think it over thoroughly. You can’t love me.... If...better say so,” he said,
not looking at her. “I shall be wretched. Let people say what they like; anything’s
better than misery.... Far better now while there’s still time....”
“I don’t understand,” she answered, panic-stricken; “you mean you want to give
it up...don’t want it?”
“Yes, if you don’t love me.”
“You’re out of your mind!” she cried, turning crimson with vexation. But his face
was so piteous, that she restrained her vexation, and flinging some clothes off an
arm-chair, she sat down beside him. “What are you thinking? tell me all.”
“I am thinking you can’t love me. What can you love me for?”
“My God! what can I do?...” she said, and burst into tears.
“Oh! what have I done?” he cried, and kneeling before her, he fell to kissing her
hands.
When the princess came into the room five minutes later, she found them completely
reconciled. Kitty had not simply assured him that she loved him, but had
gone so far–in answer to his question, what she loved him for–as to explain what for.
She told him that she loved him because she understood him completely, because
she knew what he would like, and because everything he liked was good. And this
seemed to him perfectly clear. When the princess came to them, they were sitting
side by side on the chest, sorting the dresses and disputing over Kitty’s wanting to
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