SIX

And now she was afraid that Vronsky might content himself with merely flirting1 with her daughter. She saw that Kitty was in love with him, but consoled herself with the thought that Vronsky was an honest man and therefore would not act in such a way. At the same time she knew that the freedom now permitted made it easy for a man to turn a girl’s head, and knew how lightly men regarded an offence of that kind. The week before, Kitty had repeated to her mother a conversation she had had with Vronsky while dancing the mazurka with him. This conversation had partly reassured2 the Princess; but she could not feel quite at ease. Vronsky had told Kitty that he and his brother were so used to comply with their mother’s wishes that they never made up their minds to take an important step without consulting her. ‘And I am now especially happy looking forward to my mother’s arrival from Petersburg,’ he had said.
Kitty had narrated3 this without attaching any special meaning to the words. But to her mother they appeared in a different light. She knew that the old lady was expected any day, and would approve of her son’s choice; and though she thought it strange that he should delay proposing for fear of hurting his mother, she so desired the marriage, and especially relief from her own anxiety, that she believed it.
Hard as it was to see the misfortune of Dolly, her eldest4 daughter (who thought of leaving her husband), the Princess’s anxiety as to her youngest daughter’s fate, now about to be decided5, entirely6 absorbed her. Levin’s arrival that day gave her further cause for anxiety. She was afraid that her daughter who had once seemed to have a certain affection for Levin might be led by an exaggerated feeling of loyalty7 to reject Vronsky, and she feared that in general Levin’s arrival might cause complications and delays in matters now so near conclusion.
‘Has he been back long?’ asked the Princess when they got home, referring to Levin.
‘He arrived to-day, Mama.’
‘There is one thing I want to say . . .’ the Princess began, and from her serious look Kitty guessed what was coming.
‘Mama,’ she said flushing and turning quickly toward her mother, ‘please, please, say nothing about it! I know, I know quite well.’
Her wish was the same as her mother’s, but the motive8 underlying9 her mother’s wish offended her.
‘I wish to say that having given hopes to one . . .’
‘Mama, dearest, for Heaven’s sake don’t speak. It is so dreadful to speak about it!’
‘I won’t, — only this, my darling,’ said the mother, seeing tears in her daughter’s eyes, ‘. . . you promised not to have any secrets from me and you won’t, will you?’
‘Never, Mama, never at all,’ answered Kitty blushing as she looked her mother straight in the face. ‘But I have nothing to say at present . . . I . . . I . . . if I wished to, I should not know what to say or how . . . I don’t know . . .’
‘No, she could not possibly tell an untruth with such eyes,’ thought the mother smiling at her agitation10 and joy. The Princess smiled to think how immense and important what was going on in her own soul must appear to the poor girl.

Chapter 13

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DURING the interval between dinner and the beginning of the evening party, Kitty experienced something resembling a young man’s feelings before a battle. Her heart was beating violently and she could not fix her thoughts on anything.
She felt that this evening, when those two men were to meet for the first time, would decide her fate; and she kept picturing them to herself, now individually and now together. When she thought of the past, she dwelt with pleasure and tenderness on her former relations with Levin. Memories of childhood and of Levin’s friendship with her dead brother lent a peculiar poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt sure, flattered and rejoiced her, and she could think of him with a light heart. With her thought of Vronsky was mingled some uneasiness, though he was an extremely well-bred and quiet-mannered man; a sense of something false, not in him, for he was very simple and kindly, but in herself; whereas in relation to Levin she felt herself quite simple and clear. On the other hand when she pictured to herself a future with Vronsky a brilliant vision of happiness rose up before her, while a future with Levin appeared wrapped in mist.
On going upstairs to dress for the evening and looking in the glass, she noticed with pleasure that this was one of her best days, and that she was in full possession of all her forces, which would be so much wanted for what lay before her. She was conscious of external calmness and of freedom and grace in her movements.
At half-past seven, as soon as she had come down into the drawing-room, the footman announced ‘Constantine Dmitrich Levin!’ The Princess was still in her bedroom, nor had the Prince yet come down.
‘So it’s to be!’ thought Kitty and the blood rushed to her heart. Glancing at the mirror she was horrified at her pallor.
She felt sure that he had come so early on purpose to see her alone and to propose to her. And now for the first time the matter presented itself to her in a different and entirely new light. Only now did she realize that this matter (with whom she would be happy, who was the man she loved) did not concern herself alone, but that in a moment she would have to wound a man she cared for, and to wound him cruelly. . . . Why? Because the dear fellow was in love with her. But it could not be helped, it was necessary and had to be done.
‘Oh God, must I tell him so myself?’ she thought. ‘Must I really tell him that I don’t care for him? That would not be true. What then shall I say? Shall I say that I love another? No, that’s impossible! I’ll go away. Yes, I will.’
She was already approaching the door when she heard his step. ‘No, it would be dishonest! What have I to fear? I have done nothing wrong. I’ll tell the truth, come what may! Besides, it’s impossible to feel awkward with him. Here he is!’ she thought, as she saw his powerful diffident figure before her and his shining eyes gazing at her. She looked straight into his face as if entreating him to spare her, and gave him her hand.
‘I don’t think I’ve come at the right time, I’m too early,’ he said gazing round the empty drawing-room. When he saw that his expectation was fulfilled and that nothing prevented his speaking to her, his face clouded over.
‘Not at all,’ said Kitty and sat down at the table.
‘But all I wanted was to find you alone,’ he began, still standing and avoiding her face so as not to lose courage.
‘Mama will be down in a minute. She was so tired yesterday . . .’ She spoke without knowing what she was saying, her eyes fixed on him with a caressing look full of entreaty.
He glanced at her; she blushed and was silent.
‘I told you that I did not know how long I should stay . . . that it depends on you.’
Her head dropped lower and lower, knowing the answer she would give to what was coming.
‘That it would depend on you,’ he repeated. ‘I want to say . . . I want to say . . . I came on purpose . . . that . . . to be my wife!’ he uttered hardly knowing what he said; but feeling that the worst was out he stopped and looked at her.
She was breathing heavily and not looking at him. She was filled with rapture. Her soul was overflowing with happiness. She had not at all expected that his declaration of love would make so strong an impression on her. But that lasted only for an instant. She remembered Vronsky, lifted her clear, truthful eyes to Levin’s face, and noticing his despair she replied quickly:
‘It cannot be . . . forgive me.’
How near to him she had been a minute ago, how important in his life! And how estranged and distant she seemed now!
‘Nothing else was possible,’ he said, without looking at her, and bowing he turned to go . . .

Chapter 14

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BUT just at that moment the Princess came in. An expression of terror appeared in her face on seeing them alone together and noticing their troubled looks. Levin bowed to her and said nothing. Kitty sat with downcast eyes.
‘Thank Heaven she has refused him,’ thought the mother, and her face brightened into the usual smile with which she greeted her visitors on Thursday evenings. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life in the country. He too sat down until the arrival of other guests should enable him to get away unnoticed.
Five minutes later Kitty’s friend the Countess Nordston, who had married the year before, came in.
She was a thin, sallow, nervous, ailing woman with shining black eyes. She was fond of Kitty, and her affection showed itself as the affection of a married woman for an unmarried one generally does, in a desire to get Kitty married according to her — the Countess’s — own ideal of conjugal bliss; and she wished to see her married to Vronsky. She always disliked Levin, whom at the beginning of the winter she had often met at the Shcherbatskys’. Her constant and favourite amusement was to make fun of him.
‘I love it when he looks down at me from the height of his dignity, or breaks off his clever conversation because I am too stupid, or when he shows his condescension toward me. I do love it. His condescension! I am very glad he hates me,’ she used to say with reference to him.
She was right, because Levin really could not bear her and despised her for the very thing she was proud of and regarded as a merit, that is, her nervousness and refined contempt and disregard for all the rough and common things of life.
Between the Countess Nordston and Levin relations had grown up such as are not infrequently met with in Society, when two people outwardly remaining in friendly relations despise each other to such an extent that they cannot treat each other seriously, or even be offended with one another.
The Countess at once attacked Levin.
‘Ah, Mr. Levin! So you have returned to our depraved Babylon!’ she said, holding out her tiny yellow hand and repeating the words he had used early in the winter when he had called Moscow ‘Babylon,’ — ‘Has Babylon improved or have you deteriorated?’ she added, and turned toward Kitty with a sarcastic smile.
‘I am much flattered that you remember my words so well, Countess,’ replied Levin who had had time to recover his self-possession, resuming immediately and by force of habit his banteringly hostile relation with her. ‘They evidently produced a strong impression on you.’
‘Why, of course, I always write them down. Well, Kitty, have you been skating again?’
She began to talk with Kitty. Awkward as it would have been for Levin to leave just then, he would have preferred doing so to remaining in the house for the rest of the evening in sight of Kitty, who now and then glanced at him but avoided catching his eye. He was about to rise, when the Princess noticing his silence turned toward him and said:
‘Have you come to Moscow for long? But I believe you are on the Zemstvo and cannot stay away long?’
‘No, Princess, I am no longer on the Zemstvo,’ he answered, ‘I have come to Moscow for a few days.’
‘Something out of the common has happened to him,’ thought the Countess Nordston, scrutinizing his stern and serious face; ‘why does he not start on one of his discourses? But I’ll draw him out, I do love to make a fool of him when Kitty’s about, and I will.’
‘Mr. Levin,’ she began, ‘explain to me, please, you who know everything, how it is that at our Kaluga estate the peasant men and women have drunk everything they had, and never pay anything they owe us. What is the explanation? You always praise the peasants so much.’
At that moment another lady entered the room and Levin rose.
‘Excuse me, Countess, but really I know nothing about it, and can’t tell you anything,’ he said, and as he turned he saw an officer who had come into the room behind the lady.
‘That must be Vronsky,’ he thought, and looked at Kitty to make sure. She had already glanced at Vronsky and then turned toward Levin. And by the look of her eyes which had involuntarily brightened Levin realized that she loved this man, realized it as surely as if she had told it him in so many words. But what kind of man was he?
Now, rightly or wrongly, Levin could not but remain. He had to find out what sort of a man it was that she loved.
There are people who when they meet a rival, no matter in what, at once shut their eyes to everything good in him and see only the bad. There are others who on the contrary try to discern in a lucky rival the qualities which have enabled him to succeed, and with aching hearts seek only the good in him. Levin belonged to the latter sort. But it was not difficult for him to see what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It struck him immediately. Vronsky was a dark sturdily-built man of medium height, with a good-natured, handsome, exceedingly quiet and firm face. Everything about his face and figure — from his black closely-cropped hair and freshly-shaven chin to his wide, brand-new uniform — was simple and at the same time elegant. Having stepped aside to let a lady pass, Vronsky approached first the Princess and then Kitty. When he moved toward her his fine eyes brightened with a special tenderness, and carefully and respectfully bending over her with a scarcely perceptible, happy, and (as it seemed to Levin) modestly-triumphant smile, he held out to her his small broad hand.
Having greeted and spoken a few words to every one else, he sat down without having once looked at Levin, who had not taken his eyes off him.
‘Let me introduce you,’ said the Princess indicating Levin. ‘Constantine Dmitrich Levin, Count Alexis Kirilovich Vronsky.’
Vronsky rose and looking cordially into Levin’s eyes pressed his hand.
‘I was to have dined with you earlier this winter,’ he said with his simple frank smile, ‘but you unexpectedly went away to the country.’
‘Mr. Levin despises and hates the town and us townspeople,’ said Countess Nordston.
‘My words must make a deep impression on you for you to remember them so long,’ said Levin: then recollecting that he had said this before he blushed.
Vronsky glanced at him and at the Countess, and smiled.
‘And do you always live in the country?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t it dull in the winter?’
‘No, not when one is busy: nor need one be dull in one’s own company,’ replied Levin abruptly.
‘I am fond of the country,’ said Vronsky, noticing, but pretending not to notice, Levin’s tone.
‘But I hope, Count, you would not consent always to live in the country,’ said the Countess Nordston.
‘I don’t know, I never tried it for long. I have experienced a curious feeling,’ he went on. ‘Nowhere have I felt so homesick for the country, our Russian country, with its peasants in bark-shoes, as when I spent a winter with my mother in Nice. Nice in itself is dull, you know. And Naples and Sorrento are pleasant only for a short stay, and it is there that one thinks of Russia, and longs especially for the Russian countryside. They seem to . . .’
He was addressing both Kitty and Levin, his quiet and friendly glance passing from the one to the other. He was evidently speaking quite sincerely and frankly.
Noticing that the Countess Nordston wished to say something, he stopped without finishing what he was saying, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for a moment, so that the old Princess who always had in reserve, in case of need, two heavy guns (classical versus modern education, and general conscription), had no need to bring them forward, and the Countess Nordston had no opportunity to tease Levin.
Levin wished to join in the general conversation, but found it impossible, and kept saying to himself, ‘Now I will go,’ yet he did not go, but waited for something indefinite.
The conversation touched on table-turning and spiritualism, and the Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, began relating miracles she had witnessed.
‘Ah, Countess, you must really take me there. For goodness’ sake take me to them! I have never seen anything supernatural though I always look out for it,’ said Vronsky smiling.
‘Very well, next Saturday,’ replied the Countess Nordston. ‘And you, Mr. Levin, do you believe in it?’ she asked, turning to him.
‘Why do you ask me? You know very well what I shall say.’
‘But I want to hear your opinion.’
‘My opinion is that this table-turning proves that our so-called educated class is on the same level as the peasants. They believe in the evil eye and spells and witchcraft, while we . . .’
‘Well then, you don’t believe?’
‘I can’t believe, Countess!’
‘But if I have seen it myself?’
‘The peasant women tell how they have seen the goblins with their own eyes.’
‘Then you think I am not telling the truth?’ and she laughed mirthlessly.
‘Oh no, Masha, Mr. Levin only says he can’t believe . . .’ said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin understanding this became still more irritated and wished to answer, but Vronsky, with his bright and frank smile, came at once to the rescue of the conversation, which was threatening to become unpleasant.
‘You don’t admit that it is even possible?’ he asked. ‘But why not? We admit the existence of electricity, which we don’t understand, why can’t there be other forces which we do not yet know, but which . . .’
‘When electricity was first discovered,’ Levin hurriedly interrupted, ‘only the phenomena were observed, their cause and its effects were unknown. Centuries passed before anyone thought of applying it. But the Spiritualists on the contrary began by the tables writing for them and the spirits coming to them, and they only afterwards began to say that it was an unknown force.’
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin as he always listened, evidently interested in what he was saying.
‘Yes, but the Spiritualists say, “We do not yet know what force it is, but it exists and these are the conditions under which it acts. Let the scientists discover what the force is.” No, I do not see why it should not be a new force, if it . . .’
‘For this reason,’ Levin again interrupted him, ‘that with electricity, you need only rub a piece of resin against wool, and you will always produce a certain phenomenon, but this other does not always act, so it is not a natural force.’
Probably feeling that the conversation was becoming too serious for a drawing-room, Vronsky did not reply, but in order to change the subject he smiled gaily and turned toward the ladies.
‘Let us try now, Countess,’ he began, but Levin wanted to finish saying what he thought.
‘I think,’ he continued, ‘that this attempt of the Spiritualists to explain their wonders by some kind of new force is most unsuccessful. They speak definitely of a spiritual force, and yet want to subject it to a material test.’
Everybody waited for him to finish and he was conscious of it.
‘I think you would make a splendid medium,’ said the Countess Nordston; ‘there is something ecstatic about you.’
Levin opened his mouth to reply, but blushed and said nothing.
‘Let us try table-turning now, Princess Kitty, please do,’ said Vronsky. ‘May we, Princess?’ he said to her mother and he rose and looked round for a suitable table.
Kitty rose to fetch a table, and as she passed Levin their eyes met. She pitied him with her whole soul, especially because she herself had caused him to suffer.
‘If you can forgive me, please do,’ pleaded her look. ‘I am so happy.’
‘I hate everybody, including you and myself,’ answered his eyes; and he took up his hat. But he was not fated to go yet. Just as the others began settling round the table and Levin was about to go, the old Prince came in, and having greeted the ladies he turned to Levin.
‘Ah!’ said he heartily. ‘Been here long? I did not even know that you had arrived; very glad to see you.’
He embraced Levin, and speaking to him did not catch sight of Vronsky who rose and stood quietly waiting until the Prince should notice him.
Kitty was conscious that, after what had taken place, her father’s cordiality oppressed Levin. She also noticed how coldly her father at last responded to Vronsky’s bow, and with what good-natured perplexity Vronsky looked at him, trying, but failing, to understand how it was possible not to be friendly disposed toward him, and she blushed.
‘Prince, release Mr. Levin for us as we want to try an experiment,’ said the Countess Nordston.
‘What experiment? Table-turning? Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but in my opinion playing at hunt the ring is more amusing,’ said the old Prince, looking at Vronsky and guessing that he had started the thing. ‘After all there is some sense in “Hunting the ring.” ’
Vronsky’s unflinching eye glanced in astonishment at the old Prince, and slightly smiling he at once began talking to the Countess Nordston about the ball that was to take place the next week.
‘I hope you will be there,’ he said to Kitty.
As soon as the old Prince had turned away from him Levin went out unobserved, and his last impression was Kitty’s happy smiling face as she answered Vronsky’s question about the ball.