Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [321]
‘I always buy dresses for my maids myself, at a discount,’ the princess said, continuing the conversation they had begun ... ‘Shouldn’t you skim it now, dear?’ she added, addressing Agafya Mikhailovna. ‘It’s quite unnecessary for you to do it yourself — and it’s hot,’ she stopped Kitty.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Dolly, and, getting up, she began drawing the spoon carefully over the foaming sugar, tapping it now and then to knock off what stuck to it on to a plate, which was already covered with the bright-coloured yellow-pink scum, with an undercurrent of blood-red syrup. ‘How they’ll lick it up with their tea!’ She thought of her children, remembering how she herself, as a child, had been surprised that grown-ups did not eat the best part - the scum.
‘Stiva says it’s much better to give them money,’ Dolly meanwhile continued the interesting conversation they had begun about the best way of giving presents to servants, ‘but...’
‘How can you give money!’ the princess and Kitty said with one voice. ‘They appreciate presents so.’
‘Last year, for instance, I bought not poplin exactly but something like it for our Matryona Semyonovna,’ said the princess.
‘I remember, she wore it for your name-day party.’
‘The sweetest pattern - so simple and noble. I’d have liked to make it for myself, if she hadn’t had it. Like Varenka’s. So sweet and inexpensive.’
‘Well, it seems to be ready now,’ said Dolly, pouring the syrup off the spoon.
‘When it leaves a tail, it’s ready. Cook it a little longer, Agafya Mikhailovna.’
‘These flies!’ Agafya Mikhailovna said crossly. ‘It’ll be all the same,’ she added.
‘Ah, how sweet he is, don’t frighten him!’ Kitty said suddenly, looking at a sparrow that had alighted on the railing and, turning over a raspberry stem, began pecking at it.
‘Yes, but you keep away from the brazier,’ said her mother.
‘À propos de Varenka,’ Kitty said in French, which they had been speaking all the while so that Agafya Mikhailovna would not understand them. ‘You know, maman, for some reason I expect a decision today. You understand what I mean. How good it would be!’
‘What an expert matchmaker, though!’ said Dolly. ‘How carefully and skilfully she brings them together ...’
‘No, tell me, maman, what do you think?’
‘What is there to think? He’ (‘he’ meaning Sergei Ivanovich) ‘could always make the foremost match in Russia; he’s not so young any more, but I know that many would marry him even now ... She’s very kind, but he could ...’
‘No, mama, you must understand why one couldn’t think of anything better for him or for her. First, she’s lovely!’ Kitty said, counting off one finger.
‘He likes her very much, it’s true,’ Dolly confirmed.
‘Then, he occupies such a position in society that he has absolutely no need for a wife with a fortune or social position. He needs one thing - a good and sweet wife, a peaceful one.’
‘Yes, with her he can be peaceful,’ Dolly confirmed.
‘Third, that she should love him. And that’s there ... I mean, it would be so good! ... I’m just waiting for them to come back from the forest and everything will be decided. I’ll see at once from their eyes. I’d be so glad! What do you think, Dolly?’
‘Don’t get excited. You must never get excited,’ said her mother.
‘But I’m not excited, mama. I think he’ll propose today.’
‘Ah, it’s so strange, when and how a man proposes ... There’s some obstacle, and suddenly it’s broken through,’ said Dolly, smiling pensively and recalling her past with Stepan Arkadyich.
‘Mama, how did papa propose to you?’ Kitty asked suddenly.
‘There was nothing extraordinary, it was quite simple,’ replied the princess, but her face became all bright at the memory.
‘No, but how? Anyway, you loved him before you were allowed to talk?’
Kitty felt a special charm in being able to talk with her mother as an equal about these most important things in a woman’s life.
‘Of course I loved him. He used to visit us in the country.’
‘But how did it get decided? Mama?’
‘You probably think you invented something new? It was all the same: it got decided