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‘If it were me,’ Kitty thought to herself, ‘how proud I’d be! How I’d rejoice, looking at this crowd by the windows! And she is perfectly indifferent. She is moved only by the wish not to say no and to do something nice for maman. What is it in her? What gives her this strength to disregard everything, to be so calmly independent? How I wish I knew and could learn it from her,’ Kitty thought, studying that calm face. The princess asked Varenka to sing more, and Varenka sang another piece as smoothly, distinctly and well, standing straight by the piano and beating the rhythm on it with her thin, brown hand.

The next piece in the book was an Italian song. Kitty played the prelude, which she liked very much, and turned to Varenka.

‘Let’s skip this one,’ Varenka said, blushing.

Kitty rested her timorous and questioning eyes on Varenka’s face.

‘Well, another then,’ she said hastily, turning the pages, understanding immediately that something was associated with that piece.

‘No,’ replied Varenka, putting her hand on the score and smiling, ‘no, let’s sing it.’ And she sang as calmly, coolly and well as before.

When she had finished, everyone thanked her again and went to have tea. Kitty and Varenka went out to the little garden near the house.

‘Am I right that you have some memory associated with that song?’ Kitty said. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she added hastily, ‘just say - am I right?’

‘No, why not? I’ll tell you,’ Varenka said simply and, without waiting for a response, went on: ‘Yes, there is a memory, and it was painful once. I was in love with a man, and I used to sing that piece for him.’

Kitty, her big eyes wide open, gazed silently and tenderly at Varenka.

‘I loved him and he loved me; but his mother didn’t want it, and he married someone else. He lives not far from us now, and I sometimes meet him. You didn’t think that I, too, could have a love story?’ she said, and in her beautiful face there barely glimmered that fire which, Kitty felt, had once lit up her whole being.

‘Of course I did! If I were a man, I wouldn’t be able to love anyone after knowing you. I just don’t understand how he could forget you to please his mother and make you unhappy. He had no heart.’

‘Oh, no, he’s a very good man, and I’m not unhappy; on the contrary, I’m very happy. Well, so we won’t sing any more today?’ she added, heading for the house.

‘How good, how good you are!’ Kitty cried and, stopping her, she kissed her. ‘If only I could be a little bit like you!’

‘Why do you need to be like anyone? You’re good as you are,’ said Varenka, smiling her meek and weary smile.

‘No, I’m not good at all. Well, tell me ... Wait, let’s sit down,’ said Kitty, seating her on the bench again next to herself. ‘Tell me, isn’t it insulting to think that a man scorned your love, that he didn’t want ... ?’

‘But he didn’t scorn it. I believe he loved me, but he was an obedient son...’

‘Yes, but if it wasn’t by his mother’s will, but he himself simply ...’ Kitty said, feeling that she had given away her secret and that her face, burning with a blush of shame, had already betrayed her.

‘Then he would have acted badly, and I would not feel sorry about him,’ Varenka replied, obviously understanding that it was now a matter not of her but of Kitty.

‘But the insult?’ said Kitty. ‘It’s impossible to forget an insult, impossible,’ she said, remembering how she had looked at him at the last ball when the music stopped.

‘Where is the insult? Did you do anything bad?’

‘Worse than bad - shameful.’

Varenka shook her head and placed her hand on Kitty’s hand.

‘But why shameful?’ she said. ‘You couldn’t have told a man who is indifferent to you that you loved him?’

‘Of course not, I never said a single word, but he knew. No, no, there are looks, there are ways. If I live to be a hundred, I won’t forget it.’

‘So what then? I don’t understand. The point is whether you love him now or not,’ said Varenka, calling everything by its name.

‘I hate him; I can’t forgive myself.’

‘So what then?’

‘The shame, the insult.’

‘Ah, if everybody was as sensitive