Anna Karenina
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 ill-health 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 turn-down 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-sœur_,” 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 _protégés_. 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-sœur_.”
“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.