Anna Karenina - Part 5

Kitty's face changed at once. Thoughts of Tanya as a marquise,

of Dolly, all had vanished.

"When are you going?" she said.

"Tomorrow."

"And I will go with you, can I?" she said.

"Kitty! What are you thinking of?" he said reproachfully.

"How do you mean?" offended that he should seem to take her

suggestion unwillingly and with vexation. "Why shouldn't I go?

I shan't be in your way. I..."

"I'm going because my brother is dying," said Levin. "Why should

you..."

"Why? For the same reason as you."

"And, at a moment of such gravity for me, she only thinks of her

being dull by herself," thought Levin. And this lack of candor

in a matter of such gravity infuriated him.

"It's out of the question," he said sternly.

Agafea Mihalovna, seeing that it was coming to a quarrel, gently

put down her cup and withdrew. Kitty did not even notice her.

The tone in which her husband had said the last words wounded

her, especially because he evidently did not believe what she had

said.

"I tell you, that if you go, I shall come with you; I shall

certainly come," she said hastily and wrathfully. "Why out of

the question? Why do you say it's out of the question?"

"Because it'll be going God knows where, by all sorts of roads

and to all sorts of hotels. You would be a hindrance to me,"

said Levin, trying to be cool.

"Not at all. I don't want anything. Where you can go, I

can...."

"Well, for one thing then, because this woman's there whom you

can't meet."

"I don't know and don't care to know who's there and what. I

know that my husband's brother is dying and my husband is going

to him, and I go with my husband too...."

"Kitty! Don't get angry. But just think a little: this is a

matter of such importance that I can't bear to think that you

should bring in a feeling of weakness, of dislike to being left

alone. Come, you'll be dull alone, so go and stay at Moscow a

little."

"There, you always ascribe base, vile motives to me," she said

with tears of wounded pride and fury. "I didn't mean, it wasn't

weakness, it wasn't...I feel that it's my duty to be with my

husband when he's in trouble, but you try on purpose to hurt me,

you try on purpose not to understand...."