be.
‘Mamma,’ she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to
her, ‘please, please don’t say anything about that. I know, I
know all about it.’
She wished for what her mother wished for, but the motives of her mother’s wishes wounded her.
‘I only want to say that to raise hopes…’
‘Mamma, darling, for goodness’ sake, don’t talk about it.
It’s so horrible to talk about it.’
‘I won’t,’ said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter’s eyes; ‘but one thing, my love; you promised me you
would have no secrets from me. You won’t?’
‘Never, mamma, none,’ answered Kitty, flushing a little,
and looking her mother straight in the face, ‘but there’s no
use in my telling you anything, and I…I…if I wanted to, I
don’t know what to say or how…I don’t know…’
‘No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes,’ thought
the mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The princess smiled that what was taking place just now in her soul
seemed to the poor child so immense and so important.
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Chapter 13
After dinner, and till the beginning of the evening, Kitty was feeling a sensation akin to the sensation of a young
man before a battle. Her heart throbbed violently, and her
thoughts would not rest on anything.
She felt that this evening, when they would both meet for
the first time, would be a turning point in her life. And she
was continually picturing them to herself, at one moment
each separately, and then both together. When she mused
on the past, she dwelt with pleasure, with tenderness, on
the memories of her relations with Levin. The memories of
childhood and of Levin’s friendship with her dead brother
gave a special poetic charm to her relations with him. His
love for her, of which she felt certain, was flattering and delightful to her; and it was pleasant for her to think of Levin.
In her memories of Vronsky there always entered a certain
element of awkwardness, though he was in the highest degree well-bred and at ease, as though there were some false
note—not in Vronsky, he was very simple and nice, but in
herself, while with Levin she felt perfectly simple and clear.
But, on the other hand, directly she thought of the future
with Vronsky, there arose before her a perspective of brilliant happiness; with Levin the future seemed misty.
When she went upstairs to dress, and looked into the
looking-glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her
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good days, and that she was in complete possession of all
her forces,—she needed this so for what lay before her: she
was conscious of external composure and free grace in her
movements.
At half-past seven she had only just gone down into the
drawing room, when the footman announced, ‘Konstantin
Dmitrievitch Levin.’ The princess was still in her room, and
the prince had not come in. ‘So it is to be,’ thought Kitty,
and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into the looking-glass. At
that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early
on purpose to find her alone and to make her an offer. And
only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself
in a new, different aspect; only then she realized that the
question did not affect her only— with whom she would be
happy, and whom she loved—but that she would have that
moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound
him cruelly. What for? Because he, dear fellow, loved her,
was in love with her. But there was no help for it, so it must
be, so it would have to be.
‘My God! shall I myself really have to say it to him?’ she
thought. ‘Can I tell him I don’t love him? That will be a lie.
What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No,
that’s impossible. I’m going away, I’m going away.’
She had reached the door, when she heard his step. ‘No!
it’s not honest. What have I to be afraid of? I have done
nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I’ll tell the truth. And
with him one can’t be ill at ease. Here he is,’ she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, with his shining eyes
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fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand.
‘It’s not time yet; I think I’m too early,’ he said glancing
round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent
him from speaking, his face became gloomy.
‘Oh, no,’ said Kitty, and sat down at the table.
‘But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone,’ he
began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to
lose courage.
‘Mamma will be down directly. She was very much
tired…. Yesterday…’
She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering,
and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him.
He glanced at her; she blushed, and ceased speaking.
‘I told you I did not know whether I should be here long…
that it depended on you…’
She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming.
‘That it depended on you,’ he repeated. ‘I meant to say…I
meant to say…I came for this…to be my wife!’ he brought
out, not knowing what he was saying; but feeling that the
most terrible thing was said, he stopped short and looked
at her…
She was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was
feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had
never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce
such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant.
She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes,
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and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily:
‘That cannot be…forgive me.’
A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of
what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote
from him she had become now!
‘It was bound to be so,’ he said, not looking at her.
He bowed, and was meaning to retreat.
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Chapter 14
But at that very moment the princess came in. There was
a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and
their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing.
Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. ‘Thank God, she has
refused him,’ thought the mother, and her face lighted up
with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests
on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin
about his life in the country. He sat down again, waiting for
other visitors to arrive, in order to retreat unnoticed.
Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty’s, married the preceding winter, Countess Nordston.
She was a thin, sallow, sickly, and nervous woman, with
brilliant black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection
for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for
girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty
after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her
to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shtcherbatskys’ early in the winter, and she had always disliked
him. Her invariable and favorite pursuit, when they met,
consisted in making fun of him.
‘I do like it when he looks down at me from the height of
his grandeur, or breaks off his learned conversation with me
because I’m a fool, or is condescending to me. I like that so;
to see him condescending! I am so glad he can’t bear me,’
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Anna Karenina
she used to say of him.
She was right, for Levin actually could not bear her, and
despised her for what she was proud of and regarded as a
fine characteristic—her nervousness, her delicate contempt
and indifference for everything coarse and earthly.
The Countess Nordston and Levin got into that relation
with one another not seldom seen in society, when two persons, who remain externally on friendly terms, despise each
other to such a degree that they cannot even take each other
seriously, and cannot even be offended by each other.
The Countess Nordston pounced upon Levin at once.
‘Ah, Konstantin Dmitrievitch! So you’ve come back to
our corrupt Babylon,’ she said, giving him her tiny, yellow
hand, and recalling what he had chanced to say early in the
winter, that Moscow was a Babylon. ‘Come, is Babylon reformed, or have you degenerated?’ she added, glancing with
a simper at Kitty.
‘It’s very flattering for me, countess, that you remember
my words so well,’ responded Levin, who had succeeded in
recovering his composure, and at once from habit dropped
into his tone of joking hostility to the Countess Nordston.
‘They must certainly make a great impression on you.’
‘Oh, I should think so! I always note them all down. Well,
Kitty, have you been skating again?…’
And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for
Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier for
him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the
evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then
and avoided his eyes. He was on the point of getting up,
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when the princess, noticing that he was silent, addressed
him.
‘Shall you be long in Moscow? You’re busy with the
district council, though, aren’t you, and can’t be away for
long?’
‘No, princess, I’m no longer a member of the council,’ he
said. ‘I have come up for a few days.’
‘There’s something the matter with him,’ thought Countess Nordston, glancing at his stern, serious face. ‘He isn’t in
his old argumentative mood. But I’ll draw him out. I do love
making a fool of him before Kitty, and I’ll do it.’
‘Konstantin Dmitrievitch,’ she said to him, ‘do explain
to me, please, what’s the meaning of it. You know all about
such things. At home in our village of Kaluga all the peasants and all the women have drunk up all they possessed,
and now they can’t pay us any rent. What’s the meaning of
that? You always praise the peasants so.’
At that instant another lady came into the room, and
Levin got
