But Levin was not listening to her. Flushing, he took the letter from Marya Nikolaevna, his brother Nikolai’s former mistress, and started to read it. This was now the second letter from Marya Nikolaevna. In the first letter she had written that his brother had driven her out through no fault of her own, and had added with touching naïvety that though she was again destitute, she did not ask or wish for anything, only that the thought of Nikolai Dmitrich perishing without her on account of the weakness of his health was killing her, and she asked his brother to look after him. Now she wrote something else. She had found Nikolai Dmitrich, had been with him again in Moscow, and had gone with him to a provincial capital where he had been given a post. But he had quarrelled with his superior there and was returning to Moscow, only on the way had become so ill that it was unlikely he would ever get back on his feet - so she wrote. ‘He keeps mentioning you, and we also have no more money.’
‘Read it, Dolly writes about you,’ Kitty began, smiling, but suddenly stopped, noticing the changed expression of her husband’s face.
‘What’s the matter? What is it?’
‘She writes that my brother Nikolai is dying. I’ll go.’
Kitty’s countenance suddenly changed. Her thoughts about Tanya as a marquise, about Dolly, all vanished.
‘When will you go?’ she said.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘And I’ll go with you, may I?’ she said.
‘Kitty! What on earth?’ he said in reproach.
‘Why not?’ she said, offended that he seemed to take her suggestion reluctantly and vexedly. ‘Why shouldn’t I go? I won’t bother you. I...’
‘I’m going because my brother is dying,’ said Levin. ‘Why should you...’
‘Why? For the same reason as you.’
‘At such an important moment for me,’ thought Levin, ‘she thinks only about being bored by herself.’ And that pretext in such an important matter made him angry.
‘It’s impossible,’ he said sternly.
Agafya Mikhailovna, seeing that things were heading for a quarrel, quietly put down her cup and left. Kitty did not even notice her. The tone in which her husband had spoken the last words offended her, especially since he obviously did not believe what she had said.
‘And I tell you that if you go, I’ll go with you, I’ll certainly go,’ she said hastily and wrathfully. ‘Why is it impossible? Why do you say it’s impossible?’
‘Because to go God knows where, on what roads, with what inns ... You’d be a hindrance to me,’ said Levin, trying to preserve his equanimity.
‘Not in the least. I don’t need anything. Where you can be, I, too...’
‘Well, if only because this woman will be there, with whom you cannot associate.’
‘I do not know or wish to know anything about who or what is there. I know that my husband’s brother is dying, and that my husband is going to him, and I am going with my husband, so that...’
‘Kitty! Don’t be angry. But just think, this is such an important matter that it pains me to think you’re mixing it up with a feeling of weakness, a reluctance to stay by yourself. Well, if it’s boring for you to be alone, then go to Moscow.’
‘There, you always ascribe bad, mean thoughts to me,’ she began, with tears of offence and anger. ‘It’s nothing to do with me, no weakness, nothing... I feel it’s my duty to be with my husband when my husband is in distress, and you purposely want to hurt me, you purposely don’t want to understand...’
‘No, this is terrible. To be some sort of slave!’ Levin cried out, standing up and no longer able to hold back his vexation. But in the same instant he felt that he was striking himself.
‘Why did you get married, then? You could be free. Why, if you regret it now?’ she said, jumped up and ran to the drawing room.
When he went to her there, she was sobbing.
He began talking, wishing to find words that might not so much dissuade her as merely calm her down. But she would not listen and would not agree with anything. He bent down and took her resisting hand. He kissed her hand, kissed her hair, kissed her hand again - she kept silent. But when he took her face in both his hands and said ‘Kitty!’ she suddenly recovered herself, wept a little more and made peace.
