第96章

The Princess saw that in the evenings Kitty read a French Testament that Madame Stahl had given her - a thing she had never done before; that she avoided society acquaintances and associated with the sick people who were under Varenka's protection, and especially one poor family, that of a sick painter, Petrov. Kitty was unmistakably proud of playing the part of a sister of mercy in that family. All this was well enough, and the Princess had nothing to say against it, especially as Petrov's wife was a perfectly respectable woman, and that the German Princess, noticing Kitty's devotion, praised her, calling her an angel of consolation. All this would have been very well, if there had been no exaggeration. But the Princess saw that her daughter was rushing into extremes, and so indeed she told her.

` Il ne faut jamais rien outrer ,' she said to her.

Her daughter made her no reply, but in her heart she thought that one could not talk about exaggeration where Christianity was concerned.

What exaggeration could there be in the practice of a doctrine wherein one was bidden to turn the other cheek when one was smitten, and give one's shirt if one's coat were taken? But the Princess disliked this exaggeration, and disliked even more the fact that she felt her daughter did not care to show her all her heart. Kitty did in fact conceal her new views and feelings from her mother. She concealed them not because she did not respect or did not love her mother, but simply because she was her mother. She would have revealed them to anyone sooner than to her mother.

`How is it Anna Pavlovna's not been to see us for so long?' the Princess said one day, referring to Madame Petrov. `I've asked her, but she seems put out about something.'

`No, I've not noticed it, maman,' said Kitty, flushing hotly.

`Is it long since you've been to see them?'

`We intend making an excursion to the mountains tomorrow,' answered Kitty.

`Well, you may go,' answered the Princess, gazing at her daughter's embarrassed face and trying to guess the cause of her embarrassment.

That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the excursion for the morrow. And the Princess noticed again that Kitty reddened.

`Kitty, haven't you had some misunderstanding with the Petrovs?'

said the Princess, when they were left alone. `Why has she given up sending the children and coming to see us?'

Kitty answered that nothing had happened between them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truthfully. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had changed toward her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which she could not tell her mother, which she did not put into words to herself It was one of those things which one knows but which one can never speak of even to oneself, so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken.

Again and again she went over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple delight expressed on the round, good-natured face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden him, and to get him out of doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her `my Kitty,' and would not go to bed without her. How lovely it all was! `Then she recalled the thin, terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the efforts she had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as for all consumptive people, and the pains it had cost her to think of things to say to him. She recalled the timid, softened look with which he gazed at her, and the strange feeling of compassion and awkwardness, and later of a sense of her own goodness, which she had felt at it. How lovely it all was! But all that was at first.

Now, a few days ago, everything was suddenly spoiled. Anna Pavlovna had met Kitty with affected cordiality, and had kept continual watch on her and on her husband.

Could that touching pleasure he showed when she came near be the cause of Anna Pavlovna's coolness?

`Yes,' she mused, `there was something unnatural about Anna Pavlovna, and utterly unlike her good nature, when she said angrily the day before yesterday: ``There, he will keep waiting for you; he wouldn't drink his coffee without you, though he's grown so dreadfully weak.''

`Yes, perhaps, too, she didn't like it when I gave him the rug.

It was all so simple, but he took it so awkwardly, and was so long thanking me, that I felt awkward too. And then that portrait of me he did so well.

And most of all that look of confusion and tenderness! Yes, yes, that's it!' Kitty repeated to herself with horror. `No, it can't be, it oughtn't to be! He's so much to be pitied!' she said to herself directly after.

This doubt poisoned the charm of her new life.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 2, Chapter 34[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 34 Before the end of the water cure, Prince Shcherbatsky, who had gone on from Carlsbad to Baden and Kissingen to Russian friends - to get a breath of Russian atmosphere, as he said - came back to his wife and daughter.

The views of the Prince and of the Princess on life abroad were completely opposed. The Princess thought everything delightful, and in spite of her established position in Russian society, she tried abroad to be like a European fashionable lady, which she was not for the simple reason that she was a typical Russian gentlewoman; and so she was affected, which did not altogether suit her. The Prince, on the contrary, thought everything foreign detestable, got sick of European life, kept to his Russian habits, and purposely tried to show himself abroad less European than he was in reality.