Page 492 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Varenka, alone in the world, without friends or relations,
with a melancholy disappointment in the past, desiring
nothing, regretting nothing, was just that perfection of
which Kitty dared hardly dream. In Varenka she realized

that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one
will be calm, happy, and noble. And that was what Kitty
longed to be. Seeing now clearly what was the most
important, Kitty was not satisfied with being enthusiastic
over it; she at once gave herself up with her whole soul to
the new life that was opening to her. From Varenka’s
accounts of the doings of Madame Stahl and other people
whom she mentioned, Kitty had already constructed the
plan of her own future life. She would, like Madame
Stahl’s niece, Aline, of whom Varenka had talked to her a
great deal, seek out those who were in trouble, wherever
she might be living, help them as far as she could, give
them the Gospel, read the Gospel to the sick, the
criminals, to the dying. The idea of reading the Gospel to
criminals, as Aline did, particularly fascinated Kitty. But all
these were secret dreams, of which Kitty did not talk
either to her mother or to Varenka.
While awaiting the time for carrying out her plans on a
large scale, however, Kitty, even then at the springs,
where there were so many people ill and unhappy, readily

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