“There’s one thing … that old love affair of Varenka’s,” she said, a natural chain of ideas bringing her to this point. “I should have liked to say something to Sergey Ivanovitch, to prepare him. They’re all—all men, I mean,” she added, “awfully jealous over our past.”
“Not all,” said Dolly. “You judge by your own husband. It makes him miserable even now to remember Vronsky. Eh? that’s true, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kitty answered, a pensive smile in her eyes.
“But I really don’t know,” the mother put in in defense of her motherly care of her daughter, “what there was in your past that could worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentions—that happens to every girl.”
“Oh, yes, but we didn’t mean that,” Kitty said, flushing a little.
“No, let me speak,” her mother went on, “why, you yourself would not let me have a talk to Vronsky. Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, mamma!” said Kitty, with an expression of suffering.
“There’s no keeping you young people in check nowadays. … Your friendship could not have gone beyond what was suitable. I should myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, my darling, it’s not right for you to be agitated. Please remember that, and calm yourself.”
“I’m perfectly calm, maman .”
“How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then,” said Dolly, “and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite the opposite,” she said, struck by her own ideas. “Then Anna was so happy, and Kitty thought herself unhappy. Now it is just the opposite. I often think of her.”
“A nice person to think about! Horrid, repulsive woman—no heart,” said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty had married not Vronsky, but Levin.