第621页 / 共2288页

Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this

acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not

merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her

in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a

completely new world being opened to her by means of this

acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an

exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could

contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides

the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto

there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion,

but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty

had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies

and all-night services at the Widow's Home, where one might meet

one's friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the

priest.