Page 276 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

surmises were correct; that Kitty’s 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 can’t 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 can’t tell
you. It’s 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 sister’s 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 it’s not the truth, but I
can’t drive away such thoughts. Eligible suitors, as they call

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