Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 35
CHAPTER XXXV
The prince's gayety and good humor were contagious; his household and acquaintances, and even their German landlord, felt it.
When he came in with Kitty, from the springs, the prince invited the colonel, Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter, and Varenka, to luncheon, and had the table and chairs brought out under the chestnut trees in the garden, and there the guests were served. The landlord and his domestics were filled with zeal under the influence of his good spirits. They knew his generosity; and before half an hour was over a sick Hamburg doctor, who had rooms on the upper floor, was looking down with envy on the happy group of hearty Russians sitting under the chestnut trees.
Under the flickering shade of the sun-flecked leaves sat the princess, in a bonnet trimmed with lilac ribbons, presiding over the table spread with a white cloth, whereon were placed the coffee-service, the bread, butter, cheese, and cold game; she was distributing cups and tarts. At the other end of the table sat the prince, eating with good appetite, and talking with great animation. He had spread out in front of him his purchases,—carved boxes, jackstraws, paper-cutters of all kinds, which he had brought back from all the places where he had been; and he was distributing them around to all, including Lieschen the maid, 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 cuisine, and particularly his prune soup.
The princess laughed at her husband for his Russian peculiarities; but never, since she had been at the Spa, had she been so gay and lively. The colonel, as always, was amused at the prince's jests; but he agreed with the princess on the European question, which he imagined that he understood thoroughly. The good Marya Yevgenyevna laughed at every good thing that the prince said; and even Varenka, to Kitty's great astonishment, laughed till she was tired, with undemonstrative but infectious hilarity awakened by the prince's jests. This was something Kitty had never known to happen before.
All this delighted Kitty, but she could not free herself from mental agitation; she could not resolve the problem which her father had unintentionally given her by his jesting, humorous attitude toward her friends and the life which offered her so many attractions. Moreover, she could not help puzzling herself with the reasons for the change in her relations with the Petrofs, which had struck her that day so plainly and disagreeably. All the rest were gay, but Kitty could not be gay, and this still more annoyed her. She experienced a feeling analogous to that which she had known in her childhood, when, as a punishment for some offense, she was shut up in her room and heard the gay merriment of her sisters.
"Now, why did you purchase this heap of things?" asked the princess, smiling and offering her husband a cup of coffee.
"You go out for a walk, well! and you come to a shop, and they address you, and say, 'Erlaucht, Excellenz, Durchlaucht! ' Well, when they say Durchlaucht [1], I cannot resist any longer, and my ten thalers vanish."
"It was merely because you were bored," said the princess.
"Certainly I was bored! It was ennui which one does not know how to escape from."
"But how can you be bored? There are so many interesting things to see in Germany now," said Marya Yevgenyevna.
"Yes! I know all which is interesting just at the present time: I know soup with prunes, I know pea pudding, I know everything."
"Just as you please, prince, but their institutions are interesting," said the colonel.
"Yes! but what is there interesting about them? They are as contented as copper kopeks. They have whipped the world! Now, why should I find anything to content me here? I never conquered anybody; but I have to take off my boots myself, and, what is worse, put them out myself in the corridor. In the morning I get up, and have to dress myself, and go down to the dining-room and drink execrable tea. 'T is n't like that at home. There you can get up when you please; if you are out of sorts, you can grumble; you have all the time you need for remembering things, and you can do whatever you please without hurrying."
"But time is money; you forget that," said the colonel.
"That depends. There are whole months which you would sell for fifty kopeks, and half-hours which you would not take any amount of money for. Is n't that so, Katenka? But why are you so solemn?"
"I am not, papa."
"Where are you going? Stay a little longer," said the prince to Varenka.
"But I must go home," said Varenka, rising, and laughing gayly again. After she had excused herself, she took leave of her friends, and went into the house to get her hat.
Kitty followed her. Even Varenka seemed to her friend changed. She was not less good, but she was different from what she had imagined her to be.
"Akh! it is a long time since I have laughed so much," said Varenka, as she was getting her parasol and her satchel, "How charming your papa is!"
Kitty did not answer.
"When shall I see you again?" asked Varenka,
"Maman wanted to go to the Petrofs'. Are you going to be there?" asked Kitty, trying to sound Varenka.
"I am going to be there," she replied. "They are expecting to leave, and I promised to help them pack,"
"Well, then I will go with you,"
"No; why should you?"
"Why not? why not? why not?" asked Kitty, opening her eyes very wide, and holding Varenka by her sunshade. "Wait a moment, and tell me why not,"
"'Why not?' Because your papa has come, and because they are vexed at you."
"No; tell me honestly why you don't like to have me go to the Petrofs', You don't like it; why is it?"
"I didn't say so," replied Varenka, calmly.
"I beg you to tell me."
"Must I tell you all?"
"All, all," replied Kitty.
"Well! There is really nothing very serious; only Mikhaïl Alekseyevitch—that was Petrof's name—a short time ago wanted to leave even before this, and now he does not want to go at all," replied Varenka, smiling.
"Well, well!" cried Kitty, looking at Varenka with a gloomy expression.
"Now for some reason Anna Pavlovna imagines that he does not want to go because you are here. Of course this was unfortunate; but you have been the unwitting cause of a family quarrel, and you know how irritable these invalids are."
Kitty grew still more melancholy, and kept silent; and Varenka went on speaking, trying to smooth it over, and put things in a better light, though she foresaw that the result would be either tears or reproaches, she knew not which.
"So it is better for you not to go there ....and you will not be angry...."
"But it was my fault, it was my fault," said Kitty, speaking rapidly, and snatching Varenka's parasol away from her, and not looking at her.
Varenka was amused at her friend's childish anger, but she was afraid of offending her.
"How is it your fault? I don't understand!"
"My fault because it was all pretense, it was all hypocrisy, and because it did not come from the heart. What business had I to meddle in the affairs of a stranger? And so I have been the cause of a quarrel, and I have been doing what no one asked me to do, simply because it was all hypocrisy, hypocrisy," said she.
"But why do you call it hypocrisy?" asked Varenka, gently.
"Akh! How stupid, how wretched! It was none of my business. .... Hypocrisy!" mechanically opening and shutting the sunshade.
"But it was your idea?"
"So as to seem better to others, to myself, to God,—to deceive every one. No, I will not fall so low again. I may be wicked, but at least I will not be a liar and deceiver!"
"But who is a liar?" asked Varenka, in a reproachful tone. "You speak as if ...."
But Kitty was thoroughly angry, and did not let her finish.
"I am not speaking of you, not of you at all. You are perfection. Yes, yes; I know that you are all perfection. How can I help it? ... I am wicked; this would not have occurred, if I had not been wicked. So let me be what I am, but I will not be deceitful. What have I to do with Anna Pavlovna? Let them live as they want to, and I will do the same. I can't be somebody else Besides, everything is different...."
"What is 'different' " asked Varenka, in perplexity,
"Everything! I can only live by my heart, but you live by your principles. I like you all; but you have had in view only to save me, to convert me."
"You are not fair," said Varenka.
"I am not speaking for other people. I only speak for myself."
"Kitty!" cried her mother's voice, "come here and show papa your corals."
Kitty, with a haughty face and not making it up with her friend, took the box with the corals from the table and carried it to her mother.
"What is the matter? why are you so flushed?" asked her father and mother with one voice.
"Nothing; I am coming right back; "and she hurried back to the house.
"She is still there," she thought; "what shall I tell her? Bozhe moï! what have I done? what have I said? Why did I hurt her feelings? What have I done? what shall I say to her?" she asked herself, as she hesitated at the door.
Varenka, with her hat on and her parasol in her hand, was sitting by the table, examining the spring, which Kitty had broken. She raised her head.
"Varenka, forgive me," whispered Kitty, coming up to her. "Forgive me, I don't know what I said. I ...."
"Truly, I did not mean to cause you pain," said Varenka, smiling.
Peace was made.
But her father's coming had changed for Kitty the whole world in which she lived. She did not give up what she had learned, but she confessed that she had been under an illusion by believing that she was what she had dreamed of being. She awoke as it were from a dream. She felt all the difficulty of staying without hypocrisy and boastfulness on the heights to which she had tried to raise herself; moreover, she felt still more vividly all the weight of that world of misfortunes, of illnesses, of those who surrounded her, and she was tormented by the efforts which she had made to interest herself in them; and she began to long to breathe the purer, healthier atmosphere of Russia at Yergushovo, where Dolly and the children had gone, as she learned from a letter that had just come.
But her love for Varenka had not diminished. When she went away, she begged her to come and visit them in Russia.
"I will come when you are married," said she.
"I shall never marry."
"Well, then I shall never come."
"Well, in that case, I shall get married only for your sake. Don't forget your promise," said Kitty.
The doctor's prophecies were realized. Kitty came home to Russia perfectly well; possibly she was not as gay and careless as before, but her calmness was restored. The pains of the past were only a memory.
- ↑ Durchlaut, higness.