Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/323

 But Kitty was thoroughly angry, and did not let her finish.

"I am not speaking of you, not of you at all. You are perfection. Yes, yes; I know that you are all perfection. How can I help it? ... I am wicked; this would not have occurred, if I had not been wicked. So let me be what I am, but I will not be deceitful. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them live as they want to, and I will do the same. I can't be somebody else Besides, everything is different...."

"What is 'different' " asked Varenka, in perplexity,

"Everything! I can only live by my heart, but you live by your principles. I like you all; but you have had in view only to save me, to convert me."

"You are not fair," said Varenka.

"I am not speaking for other people. I only speak for myself."

"Kitty!" cried her mother's voice, "come here and show papa your corals."

Kitty, with a haughty face and not making it up with her friend, took the box with the corals from the table and carried it to her mother.

"What is the matter? why are you so flushed?" asked her father and mother with one voice.

"Nothing; I am coming right back; "and she hurried back to the house.

"She is still there," she thought; "what shall I tell her? Bozhe moï! what have I done? what have I said? Why did I hurt her feelings? What have I done? what shall I say to her?" she asked herself, as she hesitated at the door.

Varenka, with her hat on and her parasol in her hand, was sitting by the table, examining the spring, which Kitty had broken. She raised her head.

"Varenka, forgive me," whispered Kitty, coming up to her. "Forgive me, I don't know what I said. I ...."

"Truly, I did not mean to cause you pain," said Varenka, smiling.

Peace was made.

But her father's coming had changed for Kitty the