.’
‘No, you were not mistaken,’ she said deliberately,
looking desperately into his cold face. ‘You were not
mistaken. I was, and I could not help being in despair. I
hear you, but I am thinking of him. I love him, I am his
mistress; I can’t bear you; I’m afraid of you, and I hate
you.... You can do what you like to me.’
And dropping back into the corner of the carriage, she
broke into sobs, hiding her face in her hands. Alexey
Alexandrovitch did not stir, and kept looking straight
before him. But his whole face suddenly bore the solemn
rigidity of the dead, and his expression did not change
during the whole time of the drive home. On reaching
the house he turned his head to her, still with the same
expression.
‘Very well! But I expect a strict observance of the
external forms of propriety till such time’—his voice
shook—‘as I may take measures to secure my honor and
communicate them to you.’
He got out first and helped her to get out. Before the
servants he pressed her hand, took his seat in the carriage,
and drove back to Petersburg. Immediately afterwards a
footman came from Princess Betsy and brought Anna a
note.
‘I sent to Alexey to find out how he is, and he writes
me he is quite well and unhurt, but in despair.’
‘So he will be here,’ she thought. ‘What a good thing I
told him all!’
She glanced at her watch. She had still three hours to
wait, and the memories of their last meeting set her blood
in flame.
‘My God, how light it is! It’s dreadful, but I do love to
see his face, and I do love this fantastic light.... My
husband! Oh! yes.... Well, thank God! everything’s over
with him.’
Chapter 30
In the little German watering-place to which the
Shtcherbatskys had betaken themselves, as in all places
indeed where people are gathered together, the usual
process, as it were, of the crystallization of society went
on, assigning to each member of that society a definite and
unalterable place. Just as the particle of water in frost,
definitely and unalterably, takes the special form of the
crystal of snow, so each new person that arrived at the
springs was at once placed in his special place.
Fuerst Shtcherbatsky, sammt Gemahlin und Tochter,
by the apartments they took, and from their name and
from the friends they made, were immediately crystallized
into a definite place marked out for them.
There was visiting the watering-place that year a real
German Fuerstin, in consequence of which the
crystallizing process went on more vigorously than ever.
Princess Shtcherbatskaya wished, above everything, to
present her daughter to this German princess, and the day
after their arrival she duly performed this rite. Kitty made a
low and graceful curtsey in the very simple, that is to say,
very elegant frock that had been ordered her from Paris.
The German princess said, ‘I hope the roses will soon
come back to this pretty little face,’ and for the
Shtcherbatskys certain definite lines of existence were at
once laid down from which there was no departing. The
Shtcherbatskys made the acquaintance too of the family of
an English Lady Somebody, and of a German countess and
her son, wounded in the last war, and of a learned Swede,
and of M. Canut and his sister. But yet inevitably the
Shtcherbatskys were thrown most into the society of a
Moscow lady, Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishtcheva and her
daughter, whom Kitty disliked, because she had fallen ill,
like herself, over a love affair, and a Moscow colonel,
whom Kitty had known from childhood, and always seen
in uniform and epaulets, and who now, with his little eyes
and his open neck and flowered cravat, was uncommonly
ridiculous and tedious, because there was no getting rid of
him. When all this was so firmly established, Kitty began
to be very much bored, especially as the prince went away
to Carlsbad and she was left alone with her mother. She
took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that
nothing fresh would come of them. Her chief mental
interest in the watering-place consisted in watching and
making theories about the people she did not know. It
was characteristic of Kitty that she always imagined
everything in people in the most favorable light possible,
especially so in those she did not know. And now as she
made surmises as to who people were, what were their
relations to one another, and what they were like, Kitty
endowed them with the most marvelous and noble
characters, and found confirmation of her idea in her
observations.
Of these people the one that attracted her most was a
Russian girl who had come to the watering-place with an
invalid Russian lady, Madame Stahl, as everyone called
her. Madame Stahl belonged to the highest society, but
she was so ill that she could not walk, and only on
exceptionally fine days made her appearance at the springs
in an invalid carriage. But it was not so much from illhealth
as from pride—so Princess Shtcherbatskaya
interpreted it—that Madame Stahl had not made the
acquaintance of anyone among the Russians there. The
Russian girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides that,
she was, as Kitty observed, on friendly terms with all the
invalids who were seriously ill, and there were many of
them at the springs, and looked after them in the most
natural way. This Russian girl was not, as Kitty gathered,
related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant.
Madame Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called
her ‘Mademoiselle Varenka.’ Apart from the interest Kitty
took in this girl’s relations with Madame Stahl and with
other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened, felt an
inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and was
aware when their eyes met that she too liked her.
Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she
had passed her first youth, but she was, as it were, a
creature without youth; she might have been taken for
nineteen or for thirty. If her features were criticized
separately, she was handsome rather than plain, in spite of
the sickly hue of her face. She would have been a good
figure, too, if it had not been for her extreme thinness and
the size of her head, which was too large for her medium
height. But she was not likely to be attractive to men. She
was like a fine flower, already past its bloom and without
fragrance, though the petals were still unwithered.
Moreover, she would have been unattractive to men also
from the lack of just what Kitty had too much of—of the
suppressed fire of vitality, and the consciousness of her
own attractiveness.
She always seemed absorbed in work about which
there could be no doubt, and so it seemed she could not
take interest in anything outside it. It was just this contrast
with her own position that was for Kitty the great
attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her,
in her manner of life, she would find an example of what
she was now so painfully seeking: interest in life, a dignity
in life—apart from the worldly relations of girls with men,
which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now as a
shameful hawking about of goods in search of a purchaser.
The more attentively Kitty watched her unknown friend,
the more convinced she was this girl was the perfect
creature she fancied her, and the more eagerly she wished
to make her acquaintance.
The two girls used to meet several times a day, and
every time they met, Kitty’s eyes said: ‘Who are you?
What are you? Are you really the exquisite creature I
imagine you to be? But for goodness’ sake don’t suppose,’
her eyes added, ‘that I would force my acquaintance on
you, I simply admire you and like you.’ ‘I like you too,
and you’re very, very sweet. And I should like you better
still, if I had time,’ answered the eyes of the unknown girl.
Kitty saw indeed, that she was always busy. Either she was
taking the children of a Russian family home from the
springs, or fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping
her up in it, or trying to interest an irritable invalid, or
selecting and buying cakes for tea for someone.
Soon after the arrival of the Shtcherbatskys there
appeared in the morning crowd at the springs two persons
who attracted universal and unfavorable attention. These
were a tall man with a stooping figure, and huge hands, in
an old coat too short for him, with black, simple, and yet
terrible eyes, and a pockmarked, kind-looking woman,
very badly and tastelessly dressed. Recognizing these
persons as Russians, Kitty had already in her imagination
begun constructing a delightful and touching romance
about them. But the princess, having ascertained from the
visitors’ list that this was Nikolay Levin and Marya
Nikolaevna, explained to Kitty what a bad man this Levin
was, and all her fancies about these two people vanished.
Not so much from what her mother told her, as from the
fact that it was Konstantin’s brother, this pair suddenly
seemed to Kitty intensely unpleasant. This Levin, with his
continual twitching of his head, aroused in her now an
irrepressible feeling of disgust.
It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which
persistently pursued her, expressed a feeling of hatred and
contempt, and she tried to avoid meeting him.
Chapter 31
It was a wet day; it had been raining all the morning,
and the invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into the
arcades.
Kitty was walking there with her mother and the
Moscow colonel, smart and jaunty in his European coat,
bought ready-made at Frankfort. They were walking on
one side of the arcade, trying to avoid Levin, who was
walking on the other side. Varenka, in her dark dress, in a
black hat with a turndown brim, was walking up and
down the whole length of the arcade with a blind
Frenchwoman, and, every time she met Kitty, they
exchanged friendly glances.
‘Mamma, couldn’t I speak to her?’ said Kitty, watching
her unknown friend, and noticing that she was going up
to the spring, and that they might come there together.
‘Oh, if you want to so much, I’ll find out about her
first and make her acquaintance myself,’ answered her
mother. ‘What do you see in her out of the way? A
companion, she must be. If you like, I’ll make
acquaintance with Madame Stahl; I used to know her
belle-seur,’ added the princess, lifting her head haughtily.
Kitty knew that the princess was offended that Madame
Stahl had seemed to avoid making her acquaintance. Kitty
did not insist.
‘How wonderfully sweet she is!’ she said, gazing at
Varenka just as she handed a glass to the Frenchwoman.
‘Look how natural and sweet it all is.’
‘It’s so funny to see your engouements,’ said the
princess. ‘No, we’d better go back,’ she added, noticing
Levin coming towards them with his companion and a
German doctor, to whom he was talking very noisily and
angrily.
They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard,
not noisy talk, but shouting. Levin, stopping short, was
shouting at the doctor, and the doctor, too, was excited. A
crowd gathered about them. The princess and Kitty beat a
hasty retreat, while the colonel joined the crowd to find
out what was the matter.
A few minutes later the colonel overtook them.
‘What was it?’ inquired the princess.
‘Scandalous and disgraceful!’ answered the colonel.
‘The one thing to be dreaded is meeting Russians abroad.
That tall gentleman was abusing the doctor, flinging all
sorts of insults at him because he wasn’t treating him quite
as he liked, and he began waving his stick at him. It’s
simply a scandal!’
‘Oh, how unpleasant!’ said the princess. ‘Well, and
how did it end?’
‘Luckily at that point that...the one in the mushroom
hat... intervened. A Russian lady, I think she is,’ said the
colonel.
‘Mademoiselle Varenka?’ asked Kitty.
‘Yes, yes. She came to the rescue before anyone; she
took the man by the arm and led him away.’
‘There, mamma,’ said Kitty; ‘you wonder that I’m
enthusiastic about her.’
The next day, as she watched her unknown friend,
Kitty noticed that Mademoiselle Varenka was already on
the same terms with Levin and his companion as with her
other proteges. She went up to them, entered into
conversation with them, and served as interpreter for the
woman, who could not speak any foreign language.
Kitty began to entreat her mother still more urgently to
let her make friends with Varenka. And, disagreeable as it
was to the princess to seem to take the first step in wishing
to make the acquaintance of Madame Stahl,who thought
fit to give herself airs, she made inquiries about Varenka,
and, having ascertained particulars about her tending to
prove that there could be no harm though little good in
the acquaintance, she herself approached Varenka and
made acquaintance with her.
Choosing a time when her daughter had gone to the
spring, while Varenka had stopped outside the baker’s, the
princess went up to her.
‘Allow me to make your acquaintance,’ she said, with
her dignified smile. ‘My daughter has lost her heart to
you,’ she said. ‘Possibly you do not know me. I am..’
‘That feeling is more than reciprocal, princess,’ Varenka
answered hurriedly.
‘What a good deed you did yesterday to our poor
compatriot!’ said the princess.
Varenka flushed a little. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t
think I did anything,’ she said.
‘Why, you saved that Levin from disagreeable
consequences.’
‘Yes, sa compagne called me, and I tried to pacify him,
he’s very ill and was dissatisfied with the doctor. I’m used
to looking after such invalids.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard you live at Mentone with your aunt—I
think— Madame Stahl: I used to know her belle-soeur.’
‘No, she’s not my aunt. I call her mamma, but I am not
related to her; I was brought up by her,’ answered
Varenka, flushing a little again.
This was so simply said, and so sweet was the truthful
and candid expression of her face, that the princess saw
why Kitty had taken such a fancy to Varenka.
‘Well, and what’s this Levin going to do?’ asked the
princess.
‘He’s going away,’ answered Varenka.
At that instant Kitty came up from the spring beaming
with delight that her mother had become acquainted with
her unknown friend.
‘Well, see, Kitty, your intense desire to make friends
with Mademoiselle . . .’
‘Varenka,’ Varenka put in smiling, ‘that’s what
everyone calls me.’
Kitty blushed with pleasure, and slowly, without
speaking, pressed her new friend’s hand, which did not
respond to her pressure, but lay motionless in her hand.
The hand did not respond to her pressure, but the face of
Mademoiselle Varenka glowed with a soft, glad, though
rather mournful smile, that showed large but handsome
teeth.
‘I have long wished for this too,’ she said.
‘But you are so busy.’
‘Oh, no, I’m not at all busy,’ answered Varenka, but at
that moment she had to leave her new friends because two
little Russian girls, children of an invalid, ran up to her.
‘Varenka, mamma’s calling!’ they cried.
And Varenka went after them.
Chapter 32