In the little German watering-place to which the Shtcherbatskys had
betaken themselves, as in all places indeed where people are gathered
together, the usual process, as it were, of the crystallization of
society went on, assigning to each member of that society a definite
and unalterable place. Just as the particle of water in frost,
definitely and unalterably, takes the special form of the crystal of
snow, so each new person that arrived at the springs was at once placed
in his special place.
_Fürst_ Shtcherbatsky, _sammt Gemahlin und Tochter_, by the apartments
they took, and from their name and from the friends they made, were
immediately crystallized into a definite place marked out for them.
There was visiting the watering-place that year a real German Fürstin,
in consequence of which the crystallizing process went on more
vigorously than ever. Princess Shtcherbatskaya wished, above
everything, to present her daughter to this German princess, and the
day after their arrival she duly performed this rite. Kitty made a low
and graceful curtsey in the _very simple_, that is to say, very elegant
frock that had been ordered her from Paris. The German princess said,
“I hope the roses will soon come back to this pretty little face,” and
for the Shtcherbatskys certain definite lines of existence were at once
laid down from which there was no departing. The Shtcherbatskys made
the acquaintance too of the family of an English Lady Somebody, and of
a German countess and her son, wounded in the last war, and of a
learned Swede, and of M. Canut and his sister. But yet inevitably the
Shtcherbatskys were thrown most into the society of a Moscow lady,
Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishtcheva and her daughter, whom Kitty disliked,
because she had fallen ill, like herself, over a love affair, and a
Moscow colonel, whom Kitty had known from childhood, and always seen in
uniform and epaulets, and who now, with his little eyes and his open
neck and flowered cravat, was uncommonly ridiculous and tedious,
because there was no getting rid of him. When all this was so firmly
established, Kitty began to be very much bored, especially as the
prince went away to Carlsbad and she was left alone with her mother.
She took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that nothing fresh
would come of them. Her chief mental interest in the watering-place
consisted in watching and making theories about the people she did not
know. It was characteristic of Kitty that she always imagined
everything in people in the most favorable light possible, especially
so in those she did not know. And now as she made surmises as to who
people were, what were their relations to one another, and what they
were like, Kitty endowed them with the most marvelous and noble
characters, and found confirmation of her idea in her observations.
Of these people the one that attracted her most was a Russian girl who
had come to the watering-place with an invalid Russian lady, Madame
Stahl, as everyone called her. Madame Stahl belonged to the highest
society, but she was so ill that she could not walk, and only on
exceptionally fine days made her appearance at the springs in an
invalid carriage. But it was not so much from ill-health as from
pride—so Princess Shtcherbatskaya interpreted it—that Madame Stahl had
not made the acquaintance of anyone among the Russians there. The
Russian girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides that, she was, as
Kitty observed, on friendly terms with all the invalids who were
seriously ill, and there were many of them at the springs, and looked
after them in the most natural way. This Russian girl was not, as Kitty
gathered, related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant. Madame
Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called her “Mademoiselle
Varenka.” Apart from the interest Kitty took in this girl’s relations
with Madame Stahl and with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often
happened, felt an inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and
was aware when their eyes met that she too liked her.
Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her first
youth, but she was, as it were, a creature without youth; she might
have been taken for nineteen or for thirty. If her features were
criticized separately, she was handsome rather than plain, in spite of
the sickly hue of her face. She would have been a good figure, too, if
it had not been for her extreme thinness and the size of her head,
which was too large for her medium height. But she was not likely to be
attractive to men. She was like a fine flower, already past its bloom
and without fragrance, though the petals were still unwithered.
Moreover, she would have been unattractive to men also from the lack of
just what Kitty had too much of—of the suppressed fire of vitality, and
the consciousness of her own attractiveness.
She always seemed absorbed in work about which there could be no doubt,
and so it seemed she could not take interest in anything outside it. It
was just this contrast with her own position that was for Kitty the
great attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her, in
her manner of life, she would find an example of what she was now so
painfully seeking: interest in life, a dignity in life—apart from the
worldly relations of girls with men, which so revolted Kitty, and
appeared to her now as a shameful hawking about of goods in search of a
purchaser. The more attentively Kitty watched her unknown friend, the
more convinced she was this girl was the perfect creature she fancied
her, and the more eagerly she wished to make her acquaintance.
The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they
met, Kitty’s eyes said: “Who are you? What are you? Are you really the
exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness’ sake don’t
suppose,” her eyes added, “that I would force my acquaintance on you, I
simply admire you and like you.” “I like you too, and you’re very, very
sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time,” answered the
eyes of the unknown girl. Kitty saw indeed, that she was always busy.
Either she was taking the children of a Russian family home from the
springs, or fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping her up in
it, or trying to interest an irritable invalid, or selecting and buying
cakes for tea for someone.
Soon after the arrival of the Shtcherbatskys there appeared in the
morning crowd at the springs two persons who attracted universal and
unfavorable attention. These were a tall man with a stooping figure,
and huge hands, in an old coat too short for him, with black, simple,
and yet terrible eyes, and a pockmarked, kind-looking woman, very badly
and tastelessly dressed. Recognizing these persons as Russians, Kitty
had already in her imagination begun constructing a delightful and
touching romance about them. But the princess, having ascertained from
the visitors’ list that this was Nikolay Levin and Marya Nikolaevna,
explained to Kitty what a bad man this Levin was, and all her fancies
about these two people vanished. Not so much from what her mother told
her, as from the fact that it was Konstantin’s brother, this pair
suddenly seemed to Kitty intensely unpleasant. This Levin, with his
continual twitching of his head, aroused in her now an irrepressible
feeling of disgust.
It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently
pursued her, expressed a feeling of hatred and contempt, and she tried
to avoid meeting him.