‘Well, how are you all?’ asked her mother.
‘Oh, Maman, you have enough troubles of your own. Lily is ill, and I’m worried it’s scarlet fever. I have come out now to find out how things are, because I’m not going to be able to leave the house, if, God forbid, it is scarlet fever.’
The old Prince had also come out of his study following the doctor’s departure, and after offering his cheek to Dolly and exchanging a few words with her, he turned to his wife:
‘So what’s your decision—are you going? Well, and what do you want to do with me?’
‘I think, Alexander Andreyich,* you had better stay here,’ said his wife.
‘As you wish.’
‘Maman, why shouldn’t Papa come with us?’ said Kitty. ‘It would be more fun for him, and for us.’
The old Prince got up and stroked Kitty’s hair. She raised her face and looked at him, forcing herself to smile. It always seemed to her that he understood her better than anyone else in the family, even though he did not talk to her much. Being the youngest, she was her father’s favourite, and she felt that his love for her made him particularly perceptive. Now, as she met his kind blue eyes gazing at her intently from his wrinkled face, she felt he could see right through her, and understood all the difficulties she was enduring. Blushing, she leaned towards him, expecting a kiss, but he only patted her hair and said:
‘These stupid chignons! You never even get to your real daughter, you’re just stroking the hair of poor wenches. Well, Dollinka, my love,’ he said, turning to his eldest daughter, ‘what’s that young card of yours up to?’
‘Nothing much, Papa,’ answered Dolly, realizing he was talking about her husband. ‘He’s always out, I hardly ever see him,’ she could not help adding with a mocking smile.
‘What, he still hasn’t gone off to the country to sell the wood?’
‘No, he is still getting ready to go.’
‘I see!’ said the Prince. ‘I suppose I should be getting ready to go too? I’m at your command,’ he said to his wife, sitting down. ‘And as for you, Katya,’ he added, addressing his youngest daughter, ‘there will come a time when one fine day you will wake up and say to yourself: I’m actually feeling completely well and cheerful, so Papa and I should go for a walk again in the early morning frost. Hmm?’
It seemed what her father said was very simple, but these words made Kitty feel as flustered and embarrassed as a criminal caught in the act. ‘Yes, he knows everything, he understands everything, and by saying this, he is telling me that although I am ashamed, I have to get over my shame.’ She could not pluck up the courage to say anything in reply. She tried, then suddenly burst into tears and ran out of the room.
‘You and your jokes!’ the Princess flew at her husband. ‘You always …’ and she launched into one of her tirades.
The Prince listened to the Princess’s reproaches for quite a long time and remained tight-lipped, but his face grew more and more downcast.
‘She’s so miserable, the poor thing, so miserable, and you do not sense how any reference to the cause of it all is painful to her. Ah, to be so mistaken about people!’ said the Princess, and from the change in her tone, both Dolly and the Prince realized she was talking about Vronsky. ‘I don’t understand why there aren’t laws against such vile, dishonourable people.’
‘Oh, I can’t listen to this!’ said the Prince darkly, getting up from his armchair and appearing to want to leave, but stopping in the doorway. ‘There are laws, my good woman, and since you’ve challenged me on this, I’ll tell you who’s to blame for everything: you, you, and you alone. There have always been laws against such rogues, and there still are! Yes, and even if there hadn’t been anything untoward, I may be an old man, but I’d have had that fop face me across the barrier. And now you’re trying to find a cure and bringing in all these charlatans.’
The Prince seemed to have plenty more to say, but as soon as the Princess heard his tone, she backed down and became remorseful, as she always did in serious matters.
‘Alexandre, Alexandre,’ she murmured, going towards him, and she burst into tears.
As soon as she began to cry, the Prince calmed down too. He went up to her.
‘Now, now, that’s enough! It’s hard for you too, I know. What can be done? There’s been no great misfortune. God is merciful … be thankful …’ he said, no longer knowing himself what he was saying and responding to the Princess’s wet kiss, which he felt on his hand, before leaving the room.
As soon as Kitty had left the room in tears, Dolly had immediately seen, with her maternal, family instincts, that there was woman’s work to be done, and she prepared herself for it. Mentally rolling up her sleeves, she took off her hat and prepared for action. While her mother was attacking her father, she had tried to restrain her mother as far as filial deference permitted. During the Prince’s outburst she was silent; she felt shame on her mother’s behalf and affection towards her father for so quickly becoming kind again, but when her father went out, she girded herself to do the main thing which was needed, which was to go and comfort Kitty.
‘I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time, Maman: did you know that Levin was planning to propose to Kitty when he was here last? He told Stiva.’
‘What of it? I don’t understand …’
‘Well, maybe Kitty refused him? … She didn’t tell you?’
‘No, she said nothing to me about either of them; she’s too proud. But I know it’s all because of that …’
‘Yes, but suppose she refused Levin—she wouldn’t have refused him if that other one had not been on the scene, I know … and he deceived her so horribly too.’
It was too awful for the Princess to contemplate how much she was to blame for her daughter’s plight, and she became angry.
‘Oh, I don’t understand anything any more! These days they all want to follow their own minds, they don’t tell their mothers anything, and then look what …’
‘Maman, I’ll go to her.’
‘Do. It’s not as if I am stopping you, am I?’ said her mother.
3
WHEN she went into Kitty’s small boudoir, a pretty, pink room full of vieux Saxe* figurines which was as young, pink, and light-hearted as Kitty herself had been only two months earlier, Dolly remembered how they had decorated the room together the year before, with such merriment and love. Her heart froze when she saw Kitty sitting on a low chair near the door, her eyes riveted on a corner of the carpet. Kitty glanced at her sister, and the cold and rather severe expression on her face did not change.
‘I’m about to leave, and will be shut up at home, and you won’t be able to come and see me,’ said Dolly, sitting down beside her. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘What about?’ Kitty asked quickly, lifting her head in fear.
‘What else but your grief?’
‘I don’t have any grief.’
‘Come on, Kitty. Do you really think I don’t know? I know everything. And believe me, it’s so unimportant … We’ve all been through it.’
Kitty remained silent, and her face bore a stern expression.
‘He’s not worth you suffering over him,’ continued Darya Alexandrovna, coming straight to the point.