Page 495 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 495
Anna Karenina
‘Well, you can go,’ answered the princess, gazing at her
daughter’s embarrassed face and trying to guess the cause
of her embarrassment.
That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that
Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the
expedition for the morrow. And the princess noticed again
that Kitty reddened.
‘Kitty, haven’t you had some misunderstanding with
the Petrovs?’ said the princess, when they were left alone.
‘Why has she given up sending the children and coming
to see us?’
Kitty answered that nothing had happened between
them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna
seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truly.
She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had changed
to her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which
she could not tell her mother, which she did not put into
words to herself. It was one of those things which one
knows but which one can never speak of even to oneself
so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken.
Again and again she went over in her memory all her
relations with the family. She remembered the simple
delight expressed on the round, good-humored face of
Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their
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