Anna Karenina
“Maman’s here,” she said, turning to Kitty. “She has not slept all
night, and the doctor advised her to go out. I’m taking her her work.”
“So that’s angel number one?” said the prince when Varenka had gone on.
Kitty saw that her father had meant to make fun of Varenka, but that he
could not do it because he liked her.
“Come, so we shall see all your friends,” he went on, “even Madame
Stahl, if she deigns to recognize me.”
“Why, did you know her, papa?” Kitty asked apprehensively, catching the
gleam of irony that kindled in the prince’s eyes at the mention of
Madame Stahl.
“I used to know her husband, and her too a little, before she’d joined
the Pietists.”
“What is a Pietist, papa?” asked Kitty, dismayed to find that what she
prized so highly in Madame Stahl had a name.
“I don’t quite know myself. I only know that she thanks God for
everything, for every misfortune, and thanks God too that her husband
died. And that’s rather droll, as they didn’t get on together.”
“Who’s that? What a piteous face!” he asked, noticing a sick man of
medium height sitting on a bench, wearing a brown overcoat and white
trousers that fell in strange folds about his long, fleshless legs.
This man lifted his straw hat, showed his scanty curly hair and high
forehead, painfully reddened by the pressure of the hat.
“That’s Petrov, an artist,” answered Kitty, blushing. “And that’s his
wife,” she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna, who, as though on purpose,
at the very instant they approached walked away after a child that had
run off along a path.
“Poor fellow! and what a nice face he has!” said the prince. “Why don’t
you go up to him? He wanted to speak to you.”
“Well, let us go, then,” said Kitty, turning round resolutely. “How are
you feeling today?” she asked Petrov.
Petrov got up, leaning on his stick, and looked shyly at the prince.
“This is my daughter,” said the prince. “Let me introduce myself.”
The painter bowed and smiled, showing his strangely dazzling white
teeth.
“We expected you yesterday, princess,” he said to Kitty. He staggered
as he said this, and then repeated the motion, trying to make it seem
as if it had been intentional.
“I meant to come, but Varenka said that Anna Pavlovna sent word you
were not going.”
“Not going!” said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to cough,
and his eyes sought his wife. “Anita! Anita!” he said loudly, and the
swollen veins stood out like cords on his thin white neck.
Anna Pavlovna came up.
“So you sent word to the princess that we weren’t going!” he whispered
to her angrily, losing his voice.
“Good morning, princess,” said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed smile
utterly unlike her former manner. “Very glad to make your
acquaintance,” she said to the prince. “You’ve long been expected,
prince.”
“What did you send word to the princess that we weren’t going for?” the
artist whispered hoarsely once more, still more angrily, obviously
exasperated that his voice failed him so that he could not give his
words the expression he would have liked to.
“Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren’t going,” his wife answered
crossly.
“What, when....” He coughed and waved his hand. The prince took off his
hat and moved away with his daughter.
“Ah! ah!” he sighed deeply. “Oh, poor things!”
“Yes, papa,” answered Kitty. “And you must know they’ve three children,
no servant, and scarcely any means. He gets something from the
Academy,” she went on briskly, trying to drown the distress that the
queer change in Anna Pavlovna’s manner to her had aroused in her.
“Oh, here’s Madame Stahl,” said Kitty, indicating an invalid carriage,
where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a
sunshade. This was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the gloomy,
healthy-looking German workman who pushed the carriage. Close by was
standing a flaxen-headed Swedish count, whom Kitty knew by name.
Several invalids were lingering near the low carriage, staring at the
lady as though she were some curiosity.
The prince went up to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam
of irony in his eyes. He went up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her
with extreme courtesy and affability in that excellent French that so
few speak nowadays.
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I must recall myself to thank you
for your kindness to my daughter,” he said, taking off his hat and not
putting it on again.
“Prince Alexander Shtcherbatsky,” said Madame Stahl, lifting upon him
her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty discerned a look of annoyance.
“Delighted! I have taken a great fancy to your daughter.”
“You are still in weak health?”
“Yes; I’m used to it,” said Madame Stahl, and she introduced the prince
to the Swedish count.
“You are scarcely changed at all,” the prince said to her. “It’s ten or
eleven years since I had the honor of seeing you.”
“Yes; God sends the cross and sends the strength to bear it. Often one
wonders what is the goal of this life?... The other side!” she said
angrily to Varenka, who had rearranged the rug over her feet not to her
satisfaction.
“To do good, probably,” said the prince with a twinkle in his eye.
“That is not for us to judge,” said Madame Stahl, perceiving the shade
of expression on the prince’s face. “So you will send me that book,
dear count? I’m very grateful to you,” she said to the young Swede.
“Ah!” cried the prince, catching sight of the Moscow colonel standing
near, and with a bow to Madame Stahl he walked away with his daughter
and the Moscow colonel, who joined them.
“That’s our aristocracy, prince!” the Moscow colonel said with ironical
intention. He cherished a grudge against Madame Stahl for not making
his acquaintance.
“She’s just the same,” replied the prince.
“Did you know her before her illness, prince—that’s to say before she
took to her bed?”
“Yes. She took to her bed before my eyes,” said the prince.
“They say it’s ten years since she has stood on her feet.”
“She doesn’t stand up because her legs are too short. She’s a very bad
figure.”
“Papa, it’s not possible!” cried Kitty.
“That’s what wicked tongues say, my darling. And your Varenka catches
it too,” he added. “Oh, these invalid ladies!”
“Oh, no, papa!” Kitty objected warmly. “Varenka worships her. And then
she does so much good! Ask anyone! Everyone knows her and Aline Stahl.”
“Perhaps so,” said the prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow; “but
it’s better when one does good so that you may ask everyone and no one
knows.”
Kitty did not answer, not because she had nothing to say, but because
she did not care to reveal her secret thoughts even to her father. But,
strange to say, although she had so made up her mind not to be
influenced by her father’s views, not to let him into her inmost
sanctuary, she felt that the heavenly image of Madame Stahl, which she
had carried for a whole month in her heart, had vanished, never to
return, just as the fantastic figure made up of some clothes thrown
down at random vanishes when one sees that it is only some garment
lying there. All that was left was a woman with short legs, who lay
down because she had a bad figure, and worried patient Varenka for not
arranging her rug to her liking. And by no effort of the imagination
could Kitty bring back the former Madame Stahl.
Chapter 35
The prince communicated his good humor to his own family and his
friends, and even to the German landlord in whose rooms the
Shtcherbatskys were staying.
On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the prince, who had asked
the colonel, and Marya Yevgenyevna, and Varenka all to come and have
coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to be taken into
the garden under the chestnut tree, and lunch to be laid there. The
landlord and the servants, too, grew brisker under the influence of his
good spirits. They knew his open-handedness; and half an hour later the
invalid doctor from Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked
enviously out of the window at the merry party of healthy Russians
assembled under the chestnut tree. In the trembling circles of shadow
cast by the leaves, at a table, covered with a white cloth, and set
with coffeepot, bread-and-butter, cheese, and cold game, sat the
princess in a high cap with lilac ribbons, distributing cups and
bread-and-butter. At the other end sat the prince, eating heartily, and
talking loudly and merrily. The prince had spread out near him his
purchases, carved boxes, and knick-knacks, paper-knives of all sorts,
of which he bought a heap at every watering-place, and bestowed them
upon everyone, including Lieschen, the servant girl, and the landlord,
with whom he jested in his comically bad German, assuring him that it
was not the water had cured Kitty, but his splendid cookery, especially
his plum soup. The princess laughed at her husband for his Russian
ways, but she was more lively and good-humored than she had been all
the while she had been at the waters. The colonel smiled, as he always
did, at the prince’s jokes, but as far as regards Europe, of which he
believed himself to be making a careful study, he took the princess’s
side. The simple-hearted Marya Yevgenyevna simply roared with laughter
at everything absurd the prince said, and his jokes made Varenka
helpless with feeble but infectious laughter, which was something Kitty
had never seen before.
Kitty was glad of all this, but she could not be light-hearted. She
could not solve the problem her father had unconsciously set her by his
good-humored view of her friends, and of the life that had so attracted
her. To this doubt there was joined the change in her relations with
the Petrovs, which had been so conspicuously and unpleasantly marked
that morning. Everyone was good-humored, but Kitty could not feel
good-humored, and this increased her distress. She felt a feeling such
as she had known in childhood, when she had been shut in her room as a
punishment, and had heard her sisters’ merry laughter outside.
“Well, but what did you buy this mass of things for?” said the
princess, smiling, and handing her husband a cup of coffee.
“One goes for a walk, one looks in a shop, and they ask you to buy.
‘_Erlaucht, Durchlaucht?_’ Directly they say ‘_Durchlaucht_,’ I can’t
hold out. I lose ten thalers.”
“It’s simply from boredom,” said the princess.
“Of course it is. Such boredom, my dear, that one doesn’t know what to
do with oneself.”
“How can you be bored, prince? There’s so much that’s interesting now
in Germany,” said Marya Yevgenyevna.
“But I know everything that’s interesting: the plum soup I know, and
the pea sausages I know. I know everything.”
“No, you may say what you like, prince, there’s the interest of their
institutions,” said the colonel.
“But what is there interesting about it? They’re all as pleased as
brass halfpence. They’ve conquered everybody, and why am I to be
pleased at that? I haven’t conquered anyone; and I’m obliged to take
off my own boots, yes, and put them away too; in the morning, get up
and dress at once, and go to the dining-room to drink bad tea! How
different it is at home! You get up in no haste, you get cross, grumble
a little, and come round again. You’ve time to think things over, and
no hurry.”
“But time’s money, you forget that,” said the colonel.
“Time, indeed, that depends! Why, there’s time one would give a month
of for sixpence, and time you wouldn’t give half an hour of for any
money. Isn’t that so, Katinka? What is it? why are you so depressed?”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Where are you off to? Stay a little longer,” he said to Varenka.
“I must be going home,” said Varenka, getting up, and again she went
off into a giggle. When she had recovered, she said good-bye, and went
into the house to get her hat.