simply admire you and like you.” “I like you too, and you’re very, very
sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time,” answered the eyes of
the unknown girl. Kitty saw indeed, that she was always busy. Either she
was taking the children of a Russian family home from the springs, or
fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping her up in it, or trying to
interest an irritable invalid, or selecting and buying cakes for tea for
someone.
Soon after the arrival of the Shtcherbatskys there appeared in the
morning crowd at the springs two persons who attracted universal and
unfavorable attention. These were a tall man with a stooping figure, and
huge hands, in an old coat too short for him, with black, simple, and yet
terrible eyes, and a pockmarked, kind-looking woman, very badly and
tastelessly dressed. Recognizing these persons as Russians, Kitty had
already in her imagination begun constructing a delightful and touching
romance about them. But the princess, having ascertained from the visitors’
list that this was Nikolay Levin and Marya Nikolaevna, explained to Kitty
what a bad man this Levin was, and all her fancies about these two people
vanished. Not so much from what her mother told her, as from the fact that
it was Konstantin’s brother, this pair suddenly seemed to Kitty intensely
unpleasant. This Levin, with his continual twitching of his head, aroused in
her now an irrepressible feeling of disgust.
It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently pursued her,
expressed a feeling of hatred and contempt, and she tried to avoid meeting
him.
Chapter 31
It was a wet day; it had been raining all the morning, and the invalids,
with their parasols, had flocked into the arcades.
Kitty was walking there with her mother and the Moscow colonel, smart
and jaunty in his European coat, bought ready-made at Frankfort. They
were walking on one side of the arcade, trying to avoid Levin, who was
walking on the other side. Varenka, in her dark dress, in a black hat with a
turn-down brim, was walking up and down the whole length of the arcade
with a blind Frenchwoman, and, every time she met Kitty, they exchanged
friendly glances.
“Mamma, couldn’t I speak to her?” said Kitty, watching her unknown
friend, and noticing that she was going up to the spring, and that they might
come there together.
“Oh, if you want to so much, I’ll find out about her first and make her
acquaintance myself,” answered her mother. “What do you see in her out of
the way? A companion, she must be. If you like, I’ll make acquaintance
with Madame Stahl; I used to know her belle-sœur,” added the princess,
lifting her head haughtily.
Kitty knew that the princess was offended that Madame Stahl had
seemed to avoid making her acquaintance. Kitty did not insist.
“How wonderfully sweet she is!” she said, gazing at Varenka just as she
handed a glass to the Frenchwoman. “Look how natural and sweet it all is.”
“It’s so funny to see your engouements,” said the princess. “No, we’d
better go back,” she added, noticing Levin coming towards them with his
companion and a German doctor, to whom he was talking very noisily and
angrily.
They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard, not noisy talk, but
shouting. Levin, stopping short, was shouting at the doctor, and the doctor,
too, was excited. A crowd gathered about them. The princess and Kitty beat
a hasty retreat, while the colonel joined the crowd to find out what was the
matter.
A few minutes later the colonel overtook them.
“What was it?” inquired the princess.
“Scandalous and disgraceful!” answered the colonel. “The one thing to
be dreaded is meeting Russians abroad. That tall gentleman was abusing the
doctor, flinging all sorts of insults at him because he wasn’t treating him
quite as he liked, and he began waving his stick at him. It’s simply a
scandal!”
“Oh, how unpleasant!” said the princess. “Well, and how did it end?”
“Luckily at that point that … the one in the mushroom hat … intervened.
A Russian lady, I think she is,” said the colonel.
“Mademoiselle Varenka?” asked Kitty.
“Yes, yes. She came to the rescue before anyone; she took the man by the
arm and led him away.”
“There, mamma,” said Kitty; “you wonder that I’m enthusiastic about
her.”
The next day, as she watched her unknown friend, Kitty noticed that
Mademoiselle Varenka was already on the same terms with Levin and his
companion as with her other protégés. She went up to them, entered into
conversation with them, and served as interpreter for the woman, who could
not speak any foreign language.
Kitty began to entreat her mother still more urgently to let her make
friends with Varenka. And, disagreeable as it was to the princess to seem to
take the first step in wishing to make the acquaintance of Madame Stahl,
who thought fit to give herself airs, she made inquiries about Varenka, and,
having ascertained particulars about her tending to prove that there could be
no harm though little good in the acquaintance, she herself approached
Varenka and made acquaintance with her.
Choosing a time when her daughter had gone to the spring, while
Varenka had stopped outside the baker’s, the princess went up to her.
“Allow me to make your acquaintance,” she said, with her dignified
smile. “My daughter has lost her heart to you,” she said. “Possibly you do
not know me. I am….”
“That feeling is more than reciprocal, princess,” Varenka answered
hurriedly.
“What a good deed you did yesterday to our poor compatriot!” said the
princess.
Varenka flushed a little. “I don’t remember. I don’t think I did anything,”
she said.
“Why, you saved that Levin from disagreeable consequences.”
“Yes, sa compagne called me, and I tried to pacify him, he’s very ill, and
was dissatisfied with the doctor. I’m used to looking after such invalids.”
“Yes, I’ve heard you live at Mentone with your aunt—I think—Madame
Stahl: I used to know her belle-sœur.”
“No, she’s not my aunt. I call her mamma, but I am not related to her; I
was brought up by her,” answered Varenka, flushing a little again.
