Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXXIV
Just before their season at the Spa was over. Prince Shcherbatsky rejoined them. He had been to Carlsbad, to Baden, and to Kissingen, with Russian friends,—"to get a breath of Russian air," as he expressed it.
The prince and princess had conflicting ideas in regard to living abroad. The princess thought that everything was lovely; and, notwithstanding her assured position in Russian society, while she was abroad she put on the airs of a European lady which she was not, for she was in every way a genuine Russian baruinya. The prince, on the other hand, considered everything abroad detestable, and the European life unendurable; and he even exaggerated his Russian characteristics, and tried to be less of a European than he really was.
He came back emaciated and with drooping sacks under his eyes, but in the happiest spirits; and his happy frame of mind was still further enhanced when he found that Kitty was on the road to health.
The accounts that he heard of Kitty's intimacy with Madame Stahl and Varenka, and the princess's description of the moral transformation through which his daughter was passing, rather vexed the prince, awaking in him that feeling of jealousy which he always had in regard to everything that might draw Kitty away from under his influence. He was afraid that she might ascend to regions unattainable to him. But these disagreeable presentiments were swallowed up in the sea of gayety and good humor which he always carried with him, and which his sojourn at Carlsbad had increased.
The day after his arrival, the prince, in his long paletot, and with his Russian wrinkles and his puffy cheeks standing out above his stiffly starched collar, went in the very best of spirits with Kitty to the spring.
The morning was beautiful. The neat, gay houses, with their little gardens, the sight of the German servants, with their red faces and red arms, happily working, the brilliant sun,—everything filled the heart with pleasure. But as they came nearer to the spring they met more and more invalids, whose lamentable appearance contrasted painfully with the trim and beneficent German surroundings.
For Kitty the bright sunlight, the vivid green of the trees, the sounds of the music, all formed a natural framework for these well-known faces, whose changes for better or worse she had been watching. But for the prince there was something cruel in the contrast between this bright June morning, the orchestra playing the latest waltz, and especially the sight of these healthy-looking servants, and the miserable invalids, from all the corners of Europe, dragging themselves painfully along.
In spite of the return of his youth which the prince experienced, and the pride that he felt in having his favorite daughter on his arm, he confessed to a sense of shame and awkwardness in walking along with his firm step and his vigorous limbs,
"Introduce me, introduce me to your new friends," said he to his daughter, pressing her arm with his elbow. "I am beginning to like your abominable Soden for the good which it has done you. Only it is melancholy for you.—Who is this?"
Kitty told the names of the acquaintances and strangers that they met on their way. At the very entrance of the garden they met Madame Berthe and her companion, and the prince was pleased to see the expression of joy on the old Frenchwoman's face at the sound of Kitty's voice. With true French exaggeration she immediately overwhelmed the prince with compliments, congratulating him on having such a charming daughter, whose merits she praised to the skies, declaring to her face that she was a treasure, a pearl, a ministering angel.
"Well! she must be angel number two," said the prince, gallantly, "for she calls Mademoiselle Varenka angel number one."
"Oh! Mademoiselle Varenka is truly an angel. Allez," said Madame Berthe, vivaciously.
They met Varenka herself in the gallery. She hastened up to them, carrying an elegant red bag.
"Here is papa," said Kitty.
Varenka made the prince a simple and natural salutation, almost like a courtesy, and without any false modesty immediately entered into conversation with him as she conversed with every one, without restraint or affectation.
"Of course I know you,—know you very well already," said the prince, with a pleasant expression that made Kitty see that her friend pleased her father. "Where were you going so fast?"
"Maman is here," she replied, turning to Kitty. "She did not sleep all night, and the doctor advised her to take the air. I have brought her work,"
"So that is angel number one?" said the prince, when Varenka had gone.
Kitty saw that he had intended to rally her about her friend, but had refrained because her friend had pleased him. "Well, let us go and see them all," said he,—"all your friends, even Madame Stahl, if she will deign to remember me."
"But did you ever know her, papa?" asked Kitty, with fear, as she saw an ironical flash in her father's eyes as he mentioned Madame Stahl.
"I knew her husband, and I knew her a little, before she joined the Pietists."
"What are Pietists, papa?" asked Kitty, troubled because such a nickname was given to what in Madame Stahl she valued so highly.
"I myself do not know much about them. I only know this, that she thanks God for everything, even for her tribulations, and, above all, she thanks God because her husband is dead. Now, that is comical, because they did not live happily together. But who is that? What a melancholy face!" he added, seeing an invalid sitting in a shop in cinnamon-colored paletot, with white pantaloons making strange folds around his emaciated legs. This gentleman had raised his straw hat, and bared his sparse curly hair and high sickly forehead, on which showed the red line made by the brim.
"That is Petrof, a painter," replied Kitty, with a blush; "and there is his wife," she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna, who, at their approach, had evidently made the excuse of running after one of their children playing in the street.
"Poor fellow! and what a pleasant face he has!" said the prince. "But why did you not go to him? He seemed anxious to speak to you."
"Well, let us go back to him," said Kitty, resolutely turning about. "How do you feel to-day?" she asked of Petrof.
Petrof arose, leaning on his cane, and looked timidly at the prince.
"This is my daughter," said the prince; "allow me to make your acquaintance."
The painter bowed and smiled, showing teeth of strangely dazzling whiteness.
"We expected you yesterday, princess," said he to Kitty.
He staggered as he spoke; and to conceal the fact that it was involuntary, he repeated the motion.
"I expected to come, but Varenka told me that Anna Pavlovna sent word that you were not going."
"That we were n't going?" said Petrof, troubled, and beginning to cough. Then, looking toward his wife, he called hoarsely, "Annetta! Annetta!" while the great veins on his thin white neck stood out like cords.
Anna Pavlovna drew near.
"How did you send word to the princess that we were not going?" he demanded angrily, in a whisper.
"Good-morning, princess," said Anna Pavlovna, with a constrained smile, totally different from her former effusiveness. "Very glad to make your acquaintance," she added, addressing the prince. "You have been long expected, prince."
"How could you have sent word to the princess that we were not going?" again demanded the painter, in his hoarse whisper, and still more irritated because he could not express himself as he wished.
"Oh, good heavens! I thought that we were not going," said his wife, testily.
"How?.... when?" ....
He coughed, and made a gesture of despair with his hand.
The prince raised his hat, and went away with his daughter.
"Oh! okh!" he said, with a deep sigh. "Oh, these poor creatures!"
"Yes, papa," said Kitty; "and you must know that they have three children, and no servant, and almost no means. He receives a pittance from the Academy," she continued eagerly, so as to conceal the emotion caused by the strange change in Anna Pavlovna, in her behavior to her. "Ah, there is Madame Stahl!" said Kitty, directing his attention to a wheeled-chair, in which was lying a human form, wrapped in gray and blue, propped up by pillows, and shaded by an umbrella. It was Madame Stahl. A solemn and sturdy German laborer was pushing her chair. Beside her walked a light-complexioned Swedish count, whom Kitty knew by sight. Several people had stopped near the wheeled-chair, and were gazing at this lady as if she were some curiosity.
The prince approached her, and Kitty instantly noticed in her father's eyes that ironical gleam which had troubled her before. He went up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her in that excellent French which so few Russians nowadays are able to speak, and was extremely polite and friendly.
"I do not know whether you still recollect me, but it is my duty to bring myself to your remembrance, in order that I may thank you for your kindness to my daughter," said he, taking off his hat, and holding it in his hand.
"Prince Aleksandr Shcherbatsky!" said Madame Stahl, looking at him with her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty detected a shade of dissatisfaction. "I am very glad to see you; I love your daughter so!"
"Your health is not always good?"
"Oh! I am pretty well used to it now," replied Madame Stahl; and she presented the prince to the Swedish count.
"You have changed very little," said the prince to her, "during the ten or twelve years since I had the honor of seeing you."
"Yes. God gives the cross, and gives also the power to carry it. I often ask myself why my life is so prolonged. .... Not like that," she said crossly, to Varenka, who had not succeeded in putting her plaid over her shoulders to her satisfaction.
"For doing good, without doubt," said the prince, with laughing eyes.
"It is not for us to judge," replied Madame Stahl, observing the gleam of irony in the prince's face.
"I pray you send me that book, dear count. I will thank you a thousand times," said she, turning to the young Swede.
"Ah!" cried the prince, who had just caught sight of the Muscovite colonel standing near; and, bowing to Madame Stahl, he went away with his daughter and the Muscovite colonel, who had joined him.
"This is our aristocracy, prince!" said the colonel, with sarcastic intent, for he also was piqued because Madame Stahl refused to be friendly.
"Always the same," replied the prince.
"Did you know her before her illness, prince,—that is, before she became an invalid?"
"Yes; she became an invalid after I knew her."
"They say that she has not walked for ten years." ....
"She does not walk because one leg is shorter than the other. She is very badly put together. "....
"Papa, it is impossible," cried Kitty.
"Evil tongues say so, my dear; and your friend Varenka ought to see her as she is. Oh, these invalid ladies!"
"Oh, no, papa! I assure you, Varenka adores her," cried Kitty, eagerly; "and besides, she does so much good! Ask any one you please. Every one knows her and Aline Stahl."
"Maybe," replied her father, pressing her arm gently; "but it would be better when people do such things that no one should know about it."
Kitty was silent, not because she had nothing to say, but she was unwilling to reveal her inmost thoughts even to her father.
There was one strange thing, however: decided though she was not to unbosom herself to her father, not to let him penetrate into the sanctuary of her reflections, she nevertheless was conscious that her ideal of holiness, as seen in Madame Stahl, which she had for a whole month carried in her soul, had irrevocably disappeared, as a face seen in a garment thrown down by chance disappears when one really sees how the garment is lying. She retained only the image of a lame woman who, because she was deformed, stayed in bed, and who tormented the patient Varenka because she did not arrange her plaid to suit her. And it became impossible for her imagination to bring back to her the remembrance of the former Madame Stahl.