Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance,
together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a
great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress.
She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to
her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common
with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she
could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides
the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there
was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a
religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known
from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night
services at the Widow’s Home, where one might meet one’s friends, and
in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty,
mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and
feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was
told to, which one could love.
Kitty found all this out not from words. Madame Stahl talked to Kitty
as to a charming child that one looks on with pleasure as on the memory
of one’s youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human
sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight
of Christ’s compassion for us no sorrow is trifling—and immediately
talked of other things. But in every gesture of Madame Stahl, in every
word, in every heavenly—as Kitty called it—look, and above all in the
whole story of her life, which she heard from Varenka, Kitty recognized
that something “that was important,” of which, till then, she had known
nothing.
Yet, elevated as Madame Stahl’s character was, touching as was her
story, and exalted and moving as was her speech, Kitty could not help
detecting in her some traits which perplexed her. She noticed that when
questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled
contemptuously, which was not in accord with Christian meekness. She
noticed, too, that when she had found a Catholic priest with her,
Madame Stahl had studiously kept her face in the shadow of the
lamp-shade and had smiled in a peculiar way. Trivial as these two
observations were, they perplexed her, and she had her doubts as to
Madame Stahl. But on the other hand Varenka, alone in the world,
without friends or relations, with a melancholy disappointment in the
past, desiring nothing, regretting nothing, was just that perfection of
which Kitty dared hardly dream. In Varenka she realized that one has
but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and
noble. And that was what Kitty longed to be. Seeing now clearly what
was _the most important_, Kitty was not satisfied with being
enthusiastic over it; she at once gave herself up with her whole soul
to the new life that was opening to her. From Varenka’s accounts of the
doings of Madame Stahl and other people whom she mentioned, Kitty had
already constructed the plan of her own future life. She would, like
Madame Stahl’s niece, Aline, of whom Varenka had talked to her a great
deal, seek out those who were in trouble, wherever she might be living,
help them as far as she could, give them the Gospel, read the Gospel to
the sick, to criminals, to the dying. The idea of reading the Gospel to
criminals, as Aline did, particularly fascinated Kitty. But all these
were secret dreams, of which Kitty did not talk either to her mother or
to Varenka.
While awaiting the time for carrying out her plans on a large scale,
however, Kitty, even then at the springs, where there were so many
people ill and unhappy, readily found a chance for practicing her new
principles in imitation of Varenka.
At first the princess noticed nothing but that Kitty was much under the
influence of her _engouement_, as she called it, for Madame Stahl, and
still more for Varenka. She saw that Kitty did not merely imitate
Varenka in her conduct, but unconsciously imitated her in her manner of
walking, of talking, of blinking her eyes. But later on the princess
noticed that, apart from this adoration, some kind of serious spiritual
change was taking place in her daughter.
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 nice sort of 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, only 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 cloak 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 of Madame Petrova. “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 went to see them?”
“We’re meaning to make an expedition to the mountains tomorrow,”
answered Kitty.
“Well, you can 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 expedition 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 truly. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had
changed to 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-humored 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 nice 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 nice 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.