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"I will only say one thing more: you know that I am speaking of

my sister, whom I love as I love my own children. I don't say she

cared for you, all I meant to say is that her refusal at that

moment proves nothing."

"I don't know!" said Levin, jumping up. "If you only knew how you

are hurting me. It's just as if a child of yours were dead, and

they were to say to you: He would have been like this and like

that, and he might have lived, and how happy you would have been

in him. But he's dead, dead, dead!..."

"How absurd you are!" said Darya Alexandrovna, looking with

mournful tenderness at Levin's excitement. "Yes, I see it all

more and more clearly," she went on musingly. "So you won't come

to see us, then, when Kitty's here?"

"No, I shan't come. Of course I won't avoid meeting Katerina

Alexandrovna, but as far as I can, I will try to save her the

annoyance of my presence."