“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.