seemed to her as though she were acting in a theater with actors
cleverer than she, and that her bad acting was spoiling the whole
performance. She had come with the intention of staying two
days, if all went well. But in the evening, during the game, she
made up her mind that she would go home next day. The maternal
cares and worries, which she had so hated on the way, now, after
a day spent without them, struck her in quite another light, and
tempted her back to them.

When, after evening tea and a row by night in the boat, Darya
Alexandrovna went alone to her room, took off her dress, and
began arranging her thin hair for the night, she had a great
sense of relief.

It was positively disagreeable to her to think that Anna was
coming to see her immediately. She longed to be alone with her
own thoughts.

Chapter 23

Dolly was wanting to go to bed when Anna came in to see her,
attired for the night. In the course of the day Anna had several
times begun to speak of matters near her heart, and every time
after a few words she had stopped: "Afterwards, by ourselves,
we'll talk about everything. I've got so much I want to tell
you," she said.

Now they were by themselves, and Anna did not know what to talk
about. She sat in the window looking at Dolly, and going over in
her own mind all the stores of intimate talk which had seemed so
inexhaustible beforehand, and she found nothing. At that moment
it seemed to her that everything had been said already.

"Well, what of Kitty?" she said with a heavy sigh, looking
penitently at Dolly. "Tell me the truth, Dolly: isn't she angry
with me?"

"Angry? Oh, no!" said Darya Alexandrovna, smiling.

"But she hates me, despises me?"

"Oh, no! But you know that sort of thing isn't forgiven."

"Yes, yes," said Anna, turning away and looking out of the open
window. "But I was not to blame. And who is to blame? What's
the meaning of being to blame? Could it have been otherwise?
What do you think? Could it possibly have happened that you
didn't become the wife of Stiva?"

"Really, I don't know. But this is what I want you to tell
me..."

"Yes, yes, but we've not finished about Kitty. Is she happy?
He's a very nice man, they say."

"He's much more than very nice. I don't know a better man."

"Ah, how glad I am! I'm so glad! Much more than very nice," she
repeated.

Dolly smiled.

"But tell me about yourself. We've a great deal to talk about.
An