extreme sense of aloofness, instead of intimacy, coming on after dinner, and
he knew what to do in such cases.
“Bill!” he called, and he went into the next room where he promptly
came across an aide-de-camp of his acquaintance and dropped into
conversation with him about an actress and her protector. And at once in the
conversation with the aide-de-camp Oblonsky had a sense of relaxation and
relief after the conversation with Levin, which always put him to too great a
mental and spiritual strain.
When the Tatar appeared with a bill for twenty-six roubles and odd
kopecks, besides a tip for himself, Levin, who would another time have
been horrified, like anyone from the country, at his share of fourteen
roubles, did not notice it, paid, and set off homewards to dress and go to the
Shtcherbatskys’ there to decide his fate.
Chapter 12
The young Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was the first
winter that she had been out in the world. Her success in society had been
greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even than her
mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who danced at the
Moscow balls being almost all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had
already this first winter made their appearance: Levin, and immediately
after his departure, Count Vronsky.
Levin’s appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits, and
evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious conversations between
Kitty’s parents as to her future, and to disputes between them. The prince
was on Levin’s side; he said he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The
princess for her part, going round the question in the manner peculiar to
women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing
to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great attraction to
him, and other side issues; but she did not state the principal point, which
was that she looked for a better match for her daughter, and that Levin was
not to her liking, and she did not understand him. When Levin had abruptly
departed, the princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly:
“You see I was right.” When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still
more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not simply
a good, but a brilliant match.
In the mother’s eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and
Levin. She disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising opinions and
his shyness in society, founded, as she supposed, on his pride and his queer
sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not
very much like it that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept
coming to the house for six weeks, as though he were waiting for
something, inspecting, as though he were afraid he might be doing them too
great an honor by making an offer, and did not realize that a man, who
continually visits at a house where there is a young unmarried girl, is bound
to make his intentions clear. And suddenly, without doing so, he
disappeared. “It’s as well he’s not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen
in love with him,” thought the mother.
Vronsky satisfied all the mother’s desires. Very wealthy, clever, of
aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant career in the army and at
court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished for.
Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and came
continually to the house, consequently there could be no doubt of the
seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had spent the
whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and agitation.
Princess Shtcherbatskaya had herself been married thirty years ago, her
aunt arranging the match. Her husband, about whom everything was well
known beforehand, had come, looked at his future bride, and been looked
at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual
impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterwards, on a day fixed
beforehand, the expected offer was made to her parents, and accepted. All
had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at least, to the princess.
But over her own daughters she had felt how far from simple and easy is the
business, apparently so commonplace, of marrying off one’s daughters. The
panics that had been lived through, the thoughts that had been brooded over,
the money that had been wasted, and the disputes with her husband over
marrying the two elder girls, Darya and Natalia! Now, since the youngest
had come out, she was going through the same terrors, the same doubts, and
still more violent quarrels with her husband than she had over the elder
girls. The old prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on
the score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally
jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his favorite. At
every turn he had scenes with the princess for compromising her daughter.
The princess had grown accustomed to this already with her other
daughters, but now she felt that there was more ground for the prince’s
touchiness. She saw that of late years much was changed in the manners of
society, that a mother’s duties had become still more difficult. She saw that
girls of Kitty’s age formed some sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures,
mixed freely in men’s society; drove about the streets alone, many of them
did not curtsey, and, what was the most important thing, all the girls were
firmly convinced that to choose their husbands was their own affair, and not
their parents’. “Marriages aren’t made nowadays as they used to be,” was
thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their elders. But how
marriages were made now, the princess could not learn from anyone. The
French fashion—of the parents arranging their children’s future—was not
accepted; it was condemned. The English fashion of the complete
independence of girls was also not accepted, and not possible in Russian
society. The Russian fashion of matchmaking by the offices of intermediate
persons was for some reason considered unseemly; it was ridiculed by
everyone, and by the princess herself. But how girls were to be married, and
how parents were to marry them, no one knew. Everyone with whom the
princess had chanced to discuss the matter said the same thing: “Mercy on
us, it’s high time in our day to cast off all that old-fashioned business. It’s
the young people have to marry; and not their parents; and so we ought to
leave the young people to arrange it as they choose.” It was very easy for
anyone to say that who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in
the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love,
and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was
quite unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the
princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for
themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable
to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable playthings for
children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And so the princess was
more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over her elder sisters.
Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply flirting
with her daughter. She saw that her daughter was in love with him, but tried
to comfort herself with the thought that he was an honorable man, and
would not do this. But at the same time she knew how easy it is, with the
freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl’s head, and how lightly men
generally regard such a crime. The week before, Kitty had told her mother
of a conversation she had with Vronsky during a mazurka. This
conversation had partly reassured the princess; but perfectly at ease she
could not be. Vronsky had told Kitty that both he and his brother were so
used to obeying their mother that they never made up their minds to any
important undertaking without consulting her. “And just now, I am
impatiently awaiting my mother’s arrival from Petersburg, as peculiarly
fortunate,” he told her.
Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the words.
But her mother saw them in a different light. She knew that the old lady was
expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at her son’s choice, and
she felt it strange that he should not make his offer through fear of vexing
his mother. However, she was so anxious for the marriage itself, and still
more for relief from her fears, that she believed it was so. Bitter as it was
for the princess to see the unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on the
point of leaving her husband, her anxiety over the decision of her youngest
daughter’s fate engrossed all her feelings. Today, with Levin’s
reappearance, a fresh source of anxiety arose. She was afraid that her
daughter, who had at one time, as she fancied, a feeling for Levin, might,
from extreme sense of honor, refuse Vronsky, and that Levin’s arrival might
generally complicate and delay the affair so near being concluded.
“Why, has he been here long?” the princess asked about Levin, as they
returned home.
“He came today, mamma.”
“There’s one thing I want to say….” began the princess, and from her
serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would 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….”
