Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [75]
‘Kindly sit down, miss,’ said the famous doctor.
He sat down facing her with a smile, felt her pulse, and again began asking tiresome questions. She kept answering him, but suddenly got angry and stood up.
‘Forgive me, doctor, but this really will not lead anywhere. You ask me the same thing three times over.’
The famous doctor was not offended.
‘Morbid irritation,’ he said to the old princess when Kitty had gone. ‘Anyhow, I was finished ...’
And to the princess, as to an exceptionally intelligent woman, the doctor scientifically defined her daughter’s condition and concluded with instructions on how to drink those waters of which there was no need. At the question of going abroad, the doctor lapsed into deep thought, as if solving a difficult problem. The solution was finally presented: go, and do not believe the charlatans, but refer to him in all things.
It was as if something cheerful happened after the doctor’s departure. The mother cheered up as she came back to her daughter, and Kitty pretended to cheer up. She often, almost always, had to pretend now.
‘I’m really well, maman. But if you want to go, let’s go!’ she said, and, trying to show interest in the forthcoming trip, she began talking about the preparations for their departure.
II
After the doctor left, Dolly arrived. She knew there was to be a consultation that day, and though she had only recently got up from a confinement (she had given birth to a girl at the end of winter), though she had many griefs and cares of her own, she left her nursing baby and a daughter who had fallen ill, and called to learn Kitty’s fate, which was being decided just then.
‘Well, so?’ she said, coming into the drawing room and not taking off her hat. ‘You’re all cheerful. Must be good news?’
They tried to tell her what the doctor had told them, but it turned out that though the doctor had spoken very well and at length, it was quite impossible to repeat what he had said. The only interesting thing was that it had been decided to go abroad.
Dolly sighed involuntarily. Her best friend, her sister, was leaving. And there was no cheer in her own life. Her relations with Stepan Arkadyich after the reconciliation had become humiliating. The welding, done by Anna, had not proved strong, and the family accord had broken again at the same place. There was nothing definite, but Stepan Arkadyich was almost never at home, there was also almost never any money in the house, and Dolly was constantly tormented by suspicions of his unfaithfulness, which this time she tried to drive away, fearing the already familiar pain of jealousy. The first outburst of jealousy, once lived through, could not come again, and even the discovery of unfaithfulness could not affect her as it had the first time. Such a discovery would now only deprive her of her family habits, and she allowed herself to be deceived, despising him and most of all herself for this weakness. On top of that, the cares of a large family constantly tormented her: either the nursing of the baby did not go well, or the nanny left, or, as now, one of the children fell ill.
‘And how are all yours?’ her mother asked.
‘Ah, maman, you have enough grief of your own. Lily has fallen ill, and I’m afraid it’s scarlet fever. I came now just to find out the news, and then, God forbid, if it is scarlet fever, I’ll stay put and not go anywhere.’
The old prince also came out of his study after the doctor’s departure, and having offered Dolly his cheek and said a word to her, turned to his wife:
‘What’s the decision, are you going? Well, and what do you intend to do with me?’
‘I think you should stay, Alexander,’ said his wife.
‘As you wish.’
‘Maman, why shouldn’t papa come with us?’ said Kitty. ‘It will be more cheerful for him and for us.’
The old prince stood up and stroked Kitty’s hair with his hand. She raised her face and, smiling forcedly, looked at him. It always seemed to her that