Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [138]
‘The same as ever,’ replied the prince.
‘You knew her before her illness, Prince, that is, before she took to her bed?’
‘Yes. She took to it in my time.’
‘They say she hasn’t got up for ten years.’
‘She doesn’t get up because she’s stubby-legged. She has a very bad figure ...’
‘Papa, it can’t be!’ cried Kitty.
‘Wicked tongues say so, my little friend. And your Varenka does catch it too,’ he added. ‘Ah, these ailing ladies!’
‘Oh, no, papa!’ Kitty protested hotly. ‘Varenka adores her. And besides, she does so much good! Ask anybody you like! Everybody knows her and Aline Stahl.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, pressing her arm with his elbow. ‘But it’s better to do it so that, if you ask, nobody knows.’
Kitty fell silent, not because she had nothing to say, but because she did not want to disclose her secret thoughts even to her father. Strangely, however, despite having prepared herself not to submit to her father’s opinion, not to let him into her sanctuary, she felt that the divine image of Mme Stahl that she had carried in her soul for a whole month had vanished irretrievably, as the figure made by a flung-off dress vanishes once you see how the dress is lying. There remained only a stubby-legged woman who stayed lying down because of her bad figure and tormented the docile Varenka for not tucking in her rug properly. And by no effort of imagination could she bring back the former Mme Stahl.
XXXV
The prince imparted his cheerful state of mind to his household, to his acquaintances, and even to the German landlord with whom the Shcherbatskys were staying.
Having come back from the springs with Kitty, the prince, who had invited the colonel, Marya Evgenyevna and Varenka for coffee, ordered a table and chairs to be taken out to the garden under the chestnut tree and had lunch served there. The landlord and servants revived under the influence of his cheerfulness. They knew his generosity, and a half hour later the sick doctor from Hamburg who lived upstairs was looking enviously out the window at this cheerful and healthy Russian company gathered under the chestnut tree. In the shade of the trembling circles of leaves, by the table covered with a white cloth and set with coffeepots, bread, butter, cheese and cold game, sat the princess in a fichu with lilac ribbons, handing out cups and tartines. At the other end sat the prince, eating heartily and talking loudly and cheerily. The prince laid his purchases out beside him - carved boxes, knick-knacks, paper-knives of all kinds, which he had bought in quantity at each watering-place and gave to everybody, including the maid Lischen and the landlord, with whom he joked in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the waters that had cured Kitty but his excellent food, especially the prune soup. The princess chuckled at her husband’s Russian habits, but was more lively and cheerful than she had been during her entire stay at the spa. The colonel smiled, as always, at the prince’s jokes; but with regard to Europe, which he had studied attentively, as he thought, he was on the princess’s side. The good-natured Marya Evgenyevna rocked with laughter at everything amusing that the prince said, and Varenka - something Kitty had not seen before - melted into weak but infectious laughter, provoked in her by the prince’s witticisms.
All this cheered Kitty up, yet she could not help being preoccupied. She could not solve the problem her father had unwittingly posed for her by his merry view of her friends and the life she had come to like so much. To this problem was added the change in her relations with the Petrovs, which had shown itself so obviously and unpleasantly today. Everyone was merry, but Kitty was unable to be merry, and this pained her still more. She had the same feeling as in childhood, when she was punished by being locked in her room and heard her sisters’ merry laughter.
‘Well, what did you buy such a mountain of things for?’