# LXXVI explained — The Painted Veil

> Chapter companion for The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham.

## What happens

Kitty, overwhelmed with shame and self-loathing after succumbing to Charles Townsend again, sits on the edge of her bed in despair. Townsend brings her water and leaves with self-satisfaction, while Kitty stares at her reflection, calling herself a swine and a harlot. She realizes she has not changed as she thought, and is still a slave to her passions. Dorothy Townsend visits her, mistaking her tears for grief over Walter, and offers kind words.

## Themes in this chapter

### Self-Deception and Truth

Kitty confronts the painful truth about her own weakness and inability to change, shattering her earlier self-deception of moral progress.

### Moral Awakening and Redemption

Kitty's intense shame and self-loathing mark a crisis in her moral awakening, though she feels redemption is impossible.

## Character check-ins

### Kitty Fane

Overcome with shame and self-hatred after her encounter with Townsend, she weeps bitterly and feels she has not changed.

### Charles Townsend

Brings Kitty water, shows self-satisfaction, and leaves jauntily after their encounter.

### Dorothy Townsend

Visits Kitty in her room, mistaking her tears for grief over Walter, and offers sympathy.

## Key lines

> She had thought herself free from lust and vile passions, free to live the clean and healthy life of the spirit; she had likened herself to the white egrets that fly with leisurely flight across the rice fields at dusk and they are like the soaring thoughts of a mind at rest with itself; and she was a slave.

Kitty had believed she had overcome her base desires and could live a pure, spiritual life, comparing herself to graceful egrets, but now realizes she is still a captive to her passions.

_Kitty's disillusionment with her own moral progress._

> Swine, she flung at her reflection. Swine.

Kitty calls herself a pig in the mirror, expressing her deep self-disgust.

_Kitty's self-condemnation after her lapse._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_painted_veil_se/chapters/lxxvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_painted_veil_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_painted_veil_se/chapters