Part 3 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Kitty writes to me that there's nothing she longs for so much as
quiet and solitude," Dolly said after the silence that had
followed.

"And how is she--better?" Levin asked in agitation.

"Thank God, she's quite well again. I never believed her lungs
were affected."

"Oh, I'm very glad!" said Levin, and Dolly fancied she saw
something touching, helpless, in his face as he said this and
looked silently into her face.

"Let me ask you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch," said Darya
Alexandrovna, smiling her kindly and rather mocking smile, "why
is it you are angry with Kitty?"

"I? I'm not angry with her," said Levin.

"Yes, you are angry. Why was it you did not come to see us nor
them when you were in Moscow?"

"Darya Alexandrovna," he said, blushing up to the roots of his
hair, "I wonder really that with your kind heart you don't feel
this. How it is you feel no pity for me, if nothing else, when
you know..."

"What do I know?"

"You know I made an offer and that I was refused," said Levin,
and all the tenderness he had been feeling for Kitty a minute
before was replaced by a feeling of anger for the slight he had
suffered.

"What makes you suppose I know?"

"Because everybody knows it..."

"That's just where you are mistaken; I did not know it, though
I had guessed it was so."

"Well, now you know it."

"All I knew was that something had happened that made her
dreadfully miserable, and that she begged me never to speak of
it. And if she would not tell me, she would certainly not speak
of it to anyone else. But what did pass between you? Tell me."

"I have told you."

"When was it?"

"When I was at their house the last time."

"Do you know that," said Darya Alexandrovna, "I am awfully,
awfully sorry for her. You suffer only from pride...."

"Perhaps so," said Levin, "but..."

She interrupted him.

"But she, poor girl...I am awfully, awfully sorry for her. Now I
see it all."

"Well, Darya Alexandrovna, you must excuse me," he said, getting
up. "Good-bye, Darya Alexandrovna, till we meet again."

"No, wait a minute," she said, clutching him by the sleeve.
"Wait a minute, sit down."

"Please, please, don't let us talk of this," he said, sitting
down, and at the same time feeling rise up and stir within his
heart a hope he had believed to be buried.

"If I did not like you," she said, and tears came into her eyes;
"if I did not know you, as I do know you . . ."

The feeling that had seemed dead revived more and more, rose up
and took possession of Levin's heart.

"Yes, I understand it all now," said Darya Alexandrovna.