第98章

`Not going!' said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to cough, and his eyes sought his wife. `Aneta! Aneta!' he said loudly, and the swollen veins stood out like cords on his thin white neck.

Anna Pavlovna came up.

`So you sent word to the Princess that we weren't going!' he whispered to her angrily, losing his voice.

`Good morning, Princess,' said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed smile utterly unlike her former manner. `Very glad to make your acquaintance,'

she said to the Prince. `You've long been expected, Prince.'

`Why did you send word to the Princess that we weren't going?'

the artist whispered hoarsely again, still more angrily, obviously exasperated that his voice failed him so that he could not give his words the expression he would have liked to.

`Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren't going,' his wife answered crossly.

`What, when...' He coughed and waved his hand.

The Prince took off his hat and moved away with his daughter.

`Ah! ah!' he sighed deeply. `Oh, poor things!'

`Yes, papa,' answered Kitty. `And you must know they've three children, no servant, and scarcely any means. He gets something from the Academy,' she went on briskly, trying to drown the distress that queer change in Anna Pavlovna's manner toward her had aroused in her. `Oh, here's Madame Stahl,' said Kitty, indicating an invalid carriage, where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a sunshade. This was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the gloomy, robust German workman who pushed the carriage. Close by was standing a flaxen-headed Swedish Count, whom Kitty knew by name. Several invalids were lingering near the low carriage, staring at the lady as though she were some curiosity.

The Prince walked up to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam of irony in his eyes. He walked up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her with extreme courtesy and charm in that excellent French which so few speak nowadays.

`I don't know if you remember me, but I must recall myself to thank you for your kindness to my daughter,' he said taking off his hat and not putting it on again.

`Prince Alexandre Shcherbatsky,' said Madame Stahl, lifting upon him her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty discerned a look of annoyance. `Delighted!

I have taken a great fancy to your daughter.'

`You are still in weak health?'

`Yes; I'm used to it,' said Madame Stahl, and she introduced the Prince to the Swedish Count.

`You are scarcely changed at all,' the Prince said to her. `It's ten or eleven years since I had the honor of seeing you.'

`Yes; God sends the cross and sends the strength to bear it. Often one wonders what is the goal of this life?... The other side!' she said angrily to Varenka, who had rearranged the rug over her feet not to her satisfaction.

`To do good, probably,' said the Prince with a twinkle in his eye.

`That is not for us to judge,' said Madame Stahl, perceiving the shade of expression on the Prince's face. `So you will send me that book, dear Count? I'm very grateful to you,' she said to the young Swede.

`Ah!' cried the Prince, catching sight of the Moscow colonel standing near, and with a bow to Madame Stahl he walked away with his daughter and the Moscow colonel, who joined them.

`That's our aristocracy, Prince!' the Moscow colonel said with ironical intention. He cherished a grudge against Madame Stahl for not making his acquaintance.

`She's the same as ever,' replied the Prince.

`Did you know her before her illness, Prince - that's to say, before she took to her bed?'

`Yes. She took to her bed before my eyes,' said the Prince.

`They say it's ten years since she has stood on her feet.'

`She doesn't stand up because her legs are too short. She has a very bad figure.'

`Papa, it's not possible!' cried Kitty.

`That's what wicked tongues say, my darling. And your Varenka is to endure still,' he added. `Oh, these invalid ladies!'

`Oh, no, papa!' Kitty objected warmly. `Varenka worships her.

And then she does so much good! Ask anyone! Everyone knows her and Aline Stahl.'

`Perhaps so,' said the Prince, squeezing her hand with his elbow;`but it's better when one does good so that you may ask everyone and no one knows.'

Kitty did not answer, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not care to reveal her secret thoughts even to her father.

But, strange to say, although she had made up her mind so firmly not to be influenced by her father's views, not to let him into her inmost sanctuary, she felt that the heavenly image of Madame Stahl, which she had carried for a whole month in her heart, had vanished, never to return, just as the fantastic figure made up of some clothes thrown down at random vanishes when one sees that it is only some fallen garment. All that was left was a woman with short legs, who lay down because she had a bad figure, and worried patient Varenka for not arranging her rug to her liking. And by no effort of her imagination could Kitty bring back the former Madame Stahl.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 2, Chapter 35[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 35 The Prince communicated his good humor to his own family and his friends, and even to the German landlord in whose rooms the Shcherbatskys were staying.

On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the Prince, who had asked the colonel, and Marya Eugenyevna, and Varenka all to come and have coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to be taken into the tiny garden under the chestnut tree, and lunch to be laid there. The landlord and the servants, too, grew brisker under the influence of his good spirits.

They knew his openhandedness; and half an hour later the invalid doctor from Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked enviously out of his window at the merry party of healthy Russians assembled under the chestnut tree.