“But who can have told you so?  No one has said that.  I’m certain he was in love with you, and would still be in love with you, if it hadn’t...

“Oh, the most awful thing of all for me is this sympathizing!” shrieked Kitty, suddenly flying into a passion.  She turned round on her chair, flushed crimson, and rapidly moving her fingers, pinched the clasp of her belt first with one hand and then with the other.  Dolly knew this trick her sister had of clenching her hands when she was much excited; she knew, too, that in moments of excitement Kitty was capable of forgetting herself and saying a great deal too much, and Dolly would have soothed her, but it was too late.

“What, what is it you want to make me feel, eh?” said Kitty quickly.  “That I’ve been in love with a man who didn’t care a straw for me, and that I’m dying of love for him?  And this is said to me by my own sister, who imagines that...that...that she’s sympathizing with me!...I don’t want these condolences and humbug!”

“Kitty, you’re unjust.”

“Why are you tormenting me?”

“But I...quite the contrary...I see you’re unhappy...”

But Kitty in her fury did not hear her.

“I’ve nothing to grieve over and be comforted about.  I am too proud ever to allow myself to care for a man who does not love me.”

“Yes, I don’t say so either....  Only one thing.  Tell me the truth,” said Darya Alexandrovna, taking her by the hand:  “tell me, did Levin speak to you?...”

The mention of Levin’s name seemed to deprive Kitty of the last vestige of self-control.  She leaped up from her chair, and flinging her clasp on the ground, she gesticulated rapidly with her hands and said: 

“Why bring Levin in too?  I can’t understand what you want to torment me for.  I’ve told you, and I say it again, that I have some pride, and never, never would I do as you’re doing—­go back to a man who’s deceived you, who has cared for another woman.  I can’t understand it!  You may, but I can’t!”

And saying these words she glanced at her sister, and seeing that Dolly sat silent, her head mournfully bowed, Kitty, instead of running out of the room as she had meant to do, sat down near the door, and hid her face in her handkerchief.

The silence lasted for two minutes:  Dolly was thinking of herself.  That humiliation of which she was always conscious came back to her with a peculiar bitterness when her sister reminded her of it.  She had not looked for such cruelty in her sister, and she was angry with her.  But suddenly she heard the rustle of a skirt, and with it the sound of heart-rending, smothered sobbing, and felt arms about her neck.  Kitty was on her knees before her.

“Dolinka, I am so, so wretched!” she whispered penitently.  And the sweet face covered with tears hid itself in Darya Alexandrovna’s skirt.