Page 515 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘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.

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