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"Dolinka, I am so, so wretched!" she whispered penitently. And

the sweet face covered with tears hid itself in Darya

Alexandrovna's skirt.

As though tears were the indispensable oil, without which the

machinery of mutual confidence could not run smoothly between the

two sisters, the sisters after their tears talked, not of what

was uppermost in their minds, but, though they talked of outside

matters, they understood each other. Kitty knew that the words

she had uttered in anger about her husband's infidelity and her

humiliating position had cut her poor sister to the heart, but

that she had forgiven her. Dolly for her part knew all she had

wanted to find out. She felt certain that her surmises were

correct; that Kitty's misery, her inconsolable misery, was due

precisely to the fact that Levin had made her an offer and she

had refused him, and Vronsky had deceived her, and that she was

fully prepared to love Levin and to detest Vronsky. Kitty said

not a word of that; she talked of nothing but her spiritual

condition.