by Anna Karenina (tr Richard Pevear, Larissa Volokhonsky) (Penguin Classics) (epub)
Could it be that his touching joy at her coming was the cause of Anna Pavlovna’s chilliness?
‘Yes,’ she remembered, ‘there had been something unnatural in Anna Pavlovna, and quite unlike her kindness, when she had said crossly two days ago: "Here, he’s been waiting for you, didn’t want to have coffee without you, though he got terribly weak."
‘Yes, maybe it was unpleasant for her when I gave him the rug. It’s all so simple, but he took it so awkwardly, thanked me so profusely, that I, too, felt awkward. And then the portrait of me that he painted so well. And above all – that embarrassed and tender look! Yes, yes, it’s so!’ Kitty repeated to herself in horror. ‘No, it cannot, it must not be! He’s so pathetic!’ she said to herself after that.
This doubt poisoned the charm of her new life.
XXXIV
Before the end of the course of waters, Prince Shcherbatsky, who had gone on from Karlsbad to Baden and Kissingen to visit Russian acquaintances and pick up some Russian spirit, as he said, returned to his family.
The prince and the princess held completely opposite views on life abroad. The princess found everything wonderful and, despite her firm position in Russian society, made efforts abroad to resemble a European lady – which she was not, being a typical Russian lady – and therefore had to pretend, which was somewhat awkward for her. The prince, on the contrary, found everything abroad vile and European life a burden, kept to his Russian habits and deliberately tried to show himself as less of a European than he really was.
The prince came back thinner, with bags of skin hanging under his eyes, but in the most cheerful state of mind. His cheerful disposition was strengthened when he saw Kitty completely recovered. The news of Kitty’s friendship with Mme Stahl and Varenka, and the observations conveyed to him by the princess about some change that had taken place in Kitty, troubled the prince and provoked in him the usual feeling of jealousy towards everything that interested his daughter to the exclusion of himself, and a fear lest his daughter escape from his influence into some spheres inaccessible to him. But this unpleasant news was drowned in the sea of good–natured cheerfulness that was always in him and that had been especially strengthened by the waters of Karlsbad.
The day after his arrival the prince, in his long coat, with his Russian wrinkles and bloated cheeks propped up by a starched collar, in the most cheerful state of mind, went to the springs with his daughter.
It was a wonderful morning; the tidy, cheerful houses with their little gardens, the sight of the red–faced, red–armed, beer–filled, cheerfully working German maids and the bright sun gladdened the heart; but the closer they came to the springs, the more often they met sick people, and their appearance seemed all the more doleful amidst the ordinary conditions of comfortable German life. Kitty was no longer struck by this contrast. The bright sun, the cheerful glittering of the greenery, the sounds of music, were for her the natural frame for all these familiar faces and the changes for worse or better that she followed; but for the prince the light and glitter of the June morning, the sounds of the orchestra playing a popular, cheerful waltz, and especially the sight of the stalwart serving–women, seemed something indecent and monstrous in combination with these glumly moving dead people gathered from every corner of Europe.
Despite the feeling of pride and the return of youth that he experienced when his beloved daughter walked arm in arm with him, he now felt awkward and ashamed, as it were, for his strong stride, for his big, fat–enveloped limbs. He almost had the feeling of a man undressed in public.
‘Introduce me, introduce me to your new friends,’ he said to his daughter, pressing her arm with his elbow. ‘I’ve even come to like this vile Soden of yours for having straightened you out so well. Only it’s a sad, sad place. Who’s this?’
Kitty named for him the acquaintances and non–acquaintances they met. Just at the entrance to the garden they met the blind Mme Berthe with her guide, and the prince rejoiced at the old Frenchwoman’s tender expression when she heard Kitty’s voice. She at once began talking to him with a French excess of amiability, praising him for having such a wonderful daughter, and praising Kitty to the skies, calling her a treasure, a pearl and a ministering angel.
‘Well, then she’s the second angel,’ the prince said, smiling. ‘She calls Mlle Varenka angel number one.’ ‘Oh! Mlle Varenka – there is a real angel, allez,’* Mme Berthe agreed.
In the gallery they met Varenka herself. She walked hurriedly towards them, carrying an elegant red handbag.
‘See, papa has arrived!’ Kitty said to her.
As simply and naturally as she did everything, Varenka made a movement between a bow and a curtsy, and at once began talking with the prince as she talked with everyone, simply and without constraint.
‘Certainly, I know you, know you very well,’ the prince said with a smile, from which Kitty joyfully learned that her father liked her friend. ‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’
‘Maman is here,’ she said, turning to Kitty. ‘She didn’t sleep all night, and the doctor advised her to go out. I’m bringing her some handwork.’
‘So that’s angel number one!’ said the prince, when Varenka had gone.
Kitty saw that he wanted to make fun of Varenka, but that he simply could not do it, because he liked her.
‘Well, now we’ll be seeing all your friends,’ he added, ‘including Mme Stahl, if she deigns to recognize me.’
‘Did you know her before, papa?’ Kitty asked in fear, noticing a flicker of mockery lighting up in the prince’s eyes at the mention of Mme Stahl.
‘I knew her husband, and her a little, back before she signed up with the Pietists.’[34]
‘What is a Pietist, papa?’ asked Kitty, already frightened by the fact that what she valued so highly in Mme Stahl had a name.
‘I don’t quite know myself. I only know that she thanks God for everything, for every misfortune – and for the fact that her husband died, she also thanks God. Well, and that’s rather funny, because they had a bad life together. Who is that? What a pitiful face!’ he said, noticing a sick man, not very tall, sitting on a bench in a brown coat and white trousers that fell into strange folds on the fleshless bones of his legs.
This gentleman raised his straw hat over his scant, wavy hair, revealing a high forehead with an unhealthy red mark from the hat.
‘That’s the painter Petrov,’ Kitty replied, blushing. ‘And that’s his wife,’ she added, pointing to Anna Pavlovna, who, as if on purpose, went after a child who had run down the path just as they were approaching.
* Come now.
‘How pitiful, and what a nice face he has!’ said the prince. ‘Why didn’t you go over? He wanted to say something to you.’
‘Well, let’s go then,’ Kitty said, turning resolutely. ‘How are you today?’ she asked Petrov.
Petrov stood up, leaning on his stick, and looked timidly at the prince.
‘This is my daughter,’ said the prince. ‘Allow me to introduce myself.’
The painter bowed and smiled, revealing his strangely gleaming white teeth.
‘We were expecting you yesterday, Princess,’ he said to Kitty.
He staggered as he said it, then repeated the movement, trying to make it appear that he had done it on purpose.
‘I wanted to come, but Varenka told me Anna Pavlovna sent word that you weren’t going.’
‘How’s that? Not going?’ said Petrov, blushing and seeking his wife with his eyes. ‘Annetta, Annetta!’ he said loudly, and on his thin, white neck the thick tendons strained like ropes.
Anna Pavlovna came over.
‘How is it you sent word to the princess that we weren’t going?’ he whispered to her vexedly, having lost his voice.
‘Good morning, Princess!’ Anna Pavlovna said with a false smile, so unlike her former manner. ‘How nice to make your acquaintance.’ She turned to the prince. ‘You’ve long been expected, Prince.’
‘How is it you s
ent word to the princess that we weren’t going?’ the painter rasped in a still angrier whisper, obviously vexed still more that his voice had failed him and he could not give his speech the expression he wanted.
‘Ah, my God! I thought we weren’t going,’ his wife answered irritably.
‘How so, when …’ He started coughing and waved his hand.
The prince tipped his hat and walked on with his daughter.
‘Ahh,’ he sighed deeply, ‘how unfortunate!’
‘Yes, papa,’ Kitty replied. ‘You should know that they have three children, no servants, and almost no means. He gets something from the Academy,’ she told him animatedly, trying to stifle the agitation that arose in her owing to the odd change in Anna Pavlovna’s manner towards her.
‘And here’s Mme Stahl,’ said Kitty, pointing to a bath–chair in which something lay, dressed in something grey and blue, propped on pillows under an umbrella.
This was Mme Stahl. Behind her stood the stalwart, sullen German hired–man who wheeled her around. Beside her stood a blond Swedish count whom Kitty knew by name. Several sick people lingered about the bath–chair, gazing at this lady as at something extraordinary.
The prince went up to her. And Kitty noticed at once the disturbing flicker of mockery in his eyes. He went up to Mme Stahl and addressed her extremely courteously and pleasantly, in that excellent French which so few speak nowadays.
‘I do not know whether you remember me, but I must remind you of myself in order to thank you for your kindness to my daughter,’ he said to her, removing his hat and not putting it back on.
‘Prince Alexander Shcherbatsky,’ said Mme Stahl, raising to him her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty noticed displeasure. ‘I’m delighted. I’ve come to love your daughter so.’
‘You are still unwell?’
‘I’m used to it by now,’ said Mme Stahl, and she introduced the prince and the Swedish count to each other.
‘You’ve changed very little,’ the prince said to her. ‘I have not had the honour of seeing you for some ten or eleven years.’
‘Yes, God gives the cross and the strength to bear it. I often wonder why this life drags on so … From the other side!’ she said irritably to Varenka, who had wrapped the rug round her legs in the wrong way.
‘So as to do good, most likely,’ the prince said, laughing with his eyes.
‘That is not for us to judge,’ said Mme Stahl, noticing the nuance in the prince’s expression. ‘So you’ll send me that book, my gentle Count? I’ll be much obliged.’ She turned to the young Swede.
‘Ah!’ cried the prince, seeing the Moscow colonel standing nearby, and, with a bow to Mme Stahl, he walked on with his daughter and the Moscow colonel, who joined them.
‘There’s our aristocracy, Prince!’ said the Moscow colonel, wishing to be sarcastic, as he had a grudge against Mme Stahl for not being acquainted with him.
‘The same as ever,’ replied the prince.
‘You knew her before her illness, Prince, that is, before she took to her bed?’
‘Yes. She took to it in my time.’
‘They say she hasn’t got up for ten years.’
‘She doesn’t get up because she’s stubby–legged. She has a very bad figure…’
‘Papa, it can’t be!’ cried Kitty.
‘Wicked tongues say so, my little friend. And your Varenka does catch it too,’ he added. ‘Ah, these ailing ladies!’
‘Oh, no, papa!’ Kitty protested hotly. ‘Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much good! Ask anybody you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stahl.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, pressing her arm with his elbow. ‘But it’s better to do it so that, if you ask, nobody knows.’
Kitty fell silent, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not want to disclose her secret thoughts even to her father. Strangely, however, despite having prepared herself not to submit to her father’s opinion, not to let him into her sanctuary, she felt that the divine image of Mme Stahl that she had carried in her soul for a whole month had vanished irretrievably, as the figure made by a flung–off dress vanishes once you see how the dress is lying. There remained only a stubby–legged woman who stayed lying down because of her bad figure and tormented the docile Varenka for not tucking in her rug properly. And by no effort of imagination could she bring back the former Mme Stahl.
XXXV
The prince imparted his cheerful state of mind to his household, to his acquaintances, and even to the German landlord with whom the Shcherbatskys were staying.
Having come back from the springs with Kitty, the prince, who had invited the colonel, Marya Evgenyevna and Varenka for coffee, ordered a table and chairs to be taken out to the garden under the chestnut tree and had lunch served there. The landlord and servants revived under the influence of his cheerfulness. They knew his generosity, and a half hour later the sick doctor from Hamburg who lived upstairs was looking enviously out the window at this cheerful and healthy Russian company gathered under the chestnut tree. In the shade of the trembling circles of leaves, by the table covered with a white cloth and set with coffeepots, bread, butter, cheese and cold game, sat the princess in a fichu with lilac ribbons, handing out cups and tartines. At the other end sat the prince, eating heartily and talking loudly and cheerily. The prince laid his purchases out beside him – carved boxes, knick–knacks, paper–knives of all kinds, which he had bought in quantity at each watering–place and gave to everybody, including the maid Lischen and the landlord, with whom he joked in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the waters that had cured Kitty but his excellent food, especially the prune soup. The princess chuckled at her husband’s Russian habits, but was more lively and cheerful than she had been during her entire stay at the spa. The colonel smiled, as always, at the prince’s jokes; but with regard to Europe, which he had studied attentively, as he thought, he was on the princess’s side. The good–natured Marya Evgenyevna rocked with laughter at everything amusing that the prince said, and Varenka – something Kitty had not seen before – melted into weak but infectious laughter, provoked in her by the prince’s witticisms.
All this cheered Kitty up, yet she could not help being preoccupied. She could not solve the problem her father had unwittingly posed for her by his merry view of her friends and the life she had come to like so much. To this problem was added the change in her relations with the Petrovs, which had shown itself so obviously and unpleasantly today. Everyone was merry, but Kitty was unable to be merry, and this pained her still more. She had the same feeling as in childhood, when she was punished by being locked in her room and heard her sisters’ merry laughter.
‘Well, what did you buy such a mountain of things for?’ said the princess, smiling and handing her husband a cup of coffee.
‘You go for a walk, and you come to a shop, and they beg you to buy something: "Erlaucht, Excellenz, Durchlaucht."* Well, by the time they get to "Durchlaucht" I can’t hold out: there go ten dialers.’
‘It’s only out of boredom,’ said the princess.
‘Certainly it’s out of boredom. Such boredom, my dear, that you don’t know what to do with yourself.’
‘How can you be bored, Prince? There’s so much that’s interesting in Germany now,’ said Marya Evgenyevna.
‘But I know all the interesting things: I know prune soup, I know pea sausages. I know it all.’
