Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series). Leo TolstoyЧитать онлайн книгу.
the Prince said to her with a smile, by which Kitty saw with joy that her father liked Varenka. ‘Where are you hurrying so to?’
‘Mama is here,’ said she, turning to Kitty. ‘She did not sleep all night and the doctor advised her to go out. I am taking her her work.’
‘So that is angel No. 1!’ said the Prince when Varenka had gone.
Kitty saw that he would have liked to make fun of Varenka, but was unable to do so because he liked her.
‘Well, let us see all your friends,’ he added, ‘including Madame Stahl, if she will condescend to recognize me.’
‘Oh, do you know her, Papa?’ asked Kitty, alarmed by an ironical twinkle in the Prince’s eyes when he mentioned Madame Stahl.
‘I knew her husband and her too, slightly, before she joined the Pietists.’
‘What are Pietists, Papa?’ asked Kitty, frightened by the fact that what she valued so highly in Madame Stahl had a name.
‘I don’t know very well myself. I only know that she thanks God for everything, including all misfortunes, … and thanks God for her husband’s death. And it seems funny, for they did not get on well together… . Who is that? What a pitiful face,’ he said, noticing an invalid of medium height who sat on a bench in a brown coat and white trousers which fell into strange folds over his emaciated legs. The man raised his straw hat above his thin curly hair, uncovering a tall forehead with an unhealthy redness where the hat had pressed it.
‘It is Petrov, an artist,’ Kitty replied, blushing. ‘And that is his wife,’ she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna, who on their approach went away with apparent intention, following a child who had run along the path.
‘Poor man, what a nice face he has!’ said the Prince. ‘Why did you not go up to him? He looked as if he wished to say something to you.’
‘Well, come back then,’ said Kitty, turning resolutely, ‘How are you to-day?’ she asked Petrov.
Petrov rose with the aid of a stick and looked timidly at the Prince.
‘This is my daughter,’ said the Prince; ‘allow me to introduce myself.’
The artist bowed and smiled, exposing his strangely glistening white teeth.
‘We were expecting you yesterday, Princess,’ he said to Kitty.
He staggered as he said it, and to make it appear as if he had done this intentionally, he repeated the movement.
‘I meant to come, but Varenka told me that Anna Pavlovna sent word that you were not going.’
‘Not going?’ said Petrov, flushing and immediately beginning to cough and looking round for his wife. ‘Annetta, Annetta!’ he said loudly, and the veins in his white neck protruded like thick cords.
Anna Pavlovna drew near.
‘How is it you sent word to the Princess that we were not going?’ he said in an irritable whisper, his voice failing him.
‘Good morning, Princess,’ said Anna Pavlovna with a forced smile, quite unlike her former way of greeting Kitty. ‘I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she went on, turning to the Prince. ‘You have long been expected, Prince!’
‘How is it you sent to tell the Princess we were not going?’ the painter whispered hoarsely and still more angrily, evidently irritated because his voice failed him and he could not give his words the expression he desired.
‘Oh, dear me! I thought we were not going,’ said his wife with vexation.
‘How so? When …’ he was interrupted by a fit of coughing, and made a hopeless gesture with his hand.
The Prince raised his hat and went away with his daughter.
‘Oh, oh!’ he sighed deeply. ‘What poor things!’
‘Yes, Papa,’ replied Kitty. ‘And you know they have three children, no servants, and hardly any means. He receives something from the Academy,’ she explained animatedly, trying to stifle the excitement resulting from the strange alteration in Anna Pavlovna’s manner toward her. ‘And there’s Madame Stahl,’ said Kitty, pointing to a bath-chair on which, under a sunshade, lay something supported by pillows, wrapped up in grey and pale-blue. It was Madame Stahl. Behind her was a sullen-looking, robust German workman who pushed her bath-chair. At her side stood a fair-haired Swedish Count, whom Kitty knew by name. Several patients lingered near by, gazing at this lady as at something out of the common.
The Prince approached her, and Kitty immediately noticed in his eyes that ironical spark which so disturbed her. He went up to Madame Stahl, and spoke to her extremely politely and nicely in that excellent French which so very few people speak nowadays.
‘I do not know whether you will remember me, but I must recall myself to you in order to thank you for your kindness to my daughter,’ he said, raising his hat and not putting it on again.
‘Prince Alexander Shcherbatsky,’ said Madame Stahl, lifting toward him her heavenly eyes, in which Kitty detected displeasure. ‘I am very pleased. I have grown very fond of your daughter.’
‘Your health is still not good?’
‘No, but I am accustomed to it,’ said Madame Stahl, and introduced the Swedish Count to the Prince.
‘You are very little changed,’ said the Prince. ‘I have not had the honour of seeing you for ten or eleven years.’
‘Yes, God sends a cross and gives the strength to bear it. It often seems strange to think why this life should drag on… . On that side!’ she said irritably to Varenka, who was not wrapping the plaid round her feet the right way.
‘To do good, probably,’ said the Prince, whose eyes were laughing.
‘That is not for us to judge,’ said Madame Stahl, detecting a something hardly perceptible on the Prince’s face. ‘Then you will send me that book, dear Count? Thank you very much,’ she added, turning to the young Swede.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed the Prince, seeing the Moscow Colonel standing near by, and with a bow to Madame Stahl he moved away with his daughter and with the Moscow Colonel, who had joined them.
‘That is our aristocracy, Prince!’ remarked the Colonel wishing to appear sarcastic. He had a pique against Madame Stahl because she did not wish to be acquainted with him.
‘Always the same,’ answered the Prince.
‘Did you know her before her illness, Prince? I mean before she was laid up?’
‘Yes, I knew her when she first became an invalid.’
‘I hear she has not been up for ten years.’
‘She does not get up, because her legs are too short. She has a very bad figure …’
‘Papa, impossible!’ exclaimed Kitty.
‘Evil tongues say so, my love. But your Varenka does get it,’ he added. ‘Oh, those invalid ladies!’
‘Oh no, Papa,’ Kitty objected warmly. ‘Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much good! Ask anyone you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stahl.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, pressing her arm with his elbow. ‘But it is better to do good so that, ask whom you will, no one knows anything about it.’
Kitty was silent, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not want to reveal her secret thoughts even to her father. Yet — strange to say — though she had made up her mind not to submit to her father’s opinion and not to let him enter her sanctuary, she felt that the divine image of Madame Stahl which she had carried in her bosom for a whole month had irrevocably vanished, as the figure formed by a cast-off garment vanishes when one realizes how the garment is lying. There remained only a short-legged woman who was always lying down because she had a bad figure,