I liked Western novels better because of the bitches in them

When I was left home alone, I would put on my mother’s dress and heels and sit on the couch reading Anna Karenina. Society balls, servants, aiguillettes...romantic trysts...I liked everything up to the part when Anna throws herself under the train: What did she do that for? She was beautiful and rich...for love? Not even Tolstoy could convince me...I liked Western novels better because of the bitches in them, the beautiful bitches that men would shoot themselves over and suffer for. Fall at their feet. The last time I cried over unrequited love was when I was seventeen—I spent the whole night in the bathroom with the tap running. My mother consoled me with poems by Pasternak

S. Alexievich, tr. B. Shayevich, Second-hand time (2013), 499