Anna Karenina - Part 2 - Page 11/124

"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

them--I can't bear to see them. It seems to me they're taking

stock of me and summing me up. In old days to go anywhere in a

ball dress was a simple joy to me, I admired myself; now I feel

ashamed and awkward. And then! The doctor.... Then..." Kitty

hesitated; she wanted to say further that ever since this change

had taken place in her, Stepan Arkadyevitch had become

insufferably repulsive to her, and that she could not see him

without the grossest and most hideous conceptions rising before

her imagination.

"Oh, well, everything presents itself to me, in the coarsest,

most loathsome light," she went on. "That's my illness. Perhaps

it will pass off."

"But you mustn't think about it."

"I can't help it. I'm never happy except with the children at

your house."

"What a pity you can't be with me!"

"Oh, yes, I'm coming. I've had scarlatina, and I'll persuade

mamma to let me."

Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her

sister's and nursed the children all through the scarlatina, for

scarlatina it turned out to be. The two sisters brought all the

six children successfully through it, but Kitty was no better in

health, and in Lent the Shtcherbatskys went abroad.