Anna Karenina

Chapter 30
In the little German watering-place to which the Shtcherbatskys had
betaken themselves, as in all places indeed where people are gathered
together, the usual process, as it were, of the crystallization of society went
on, assigning to each member of that society a definite and unalterable
place. Just as the particle of water in frost, definitely and unalterably, takes
the special form of the crystal of snow, so each new person that arrived at
the springs was at once placed in his special place.
Fuerst Shtcherbatsky, sammt Gemahlin und Tochter, by the apartments
they took, and from their name and from the friends they made, were
immediately crystallized into a definite place marked out for them.
There was visiting the watering-place that year a real German Fuerstin, in
consequence of which the crystallizing process went on more vigorously
than ever. Princess Shtcherbatskaya wished, above everything, to present
her daughter to this German princess, and the day after their arrival she
duly performed this rite. Kitty made a low and graceful curtsey in the very
simple, that is to say, very elegant frock that had been ordered her from
Paris. The German princess said, "I hope the roses will soon come back to
this pretty little face," and for the Shtcherbatskys certain definite lines of
existence were at once laid down from which there was no departing. The
Shtcherbatskys made the acquaintance too of the family of an English Lady
Somebody, and of a German countess and her son, wounded in the last war,
and of a learned Swede, and of M. Canut and his sister. But yet inevitably
the Shtcherbatskys were thrown most into the society of a Moscow lady,
Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishtcheva and her daughter, whom Kitty disliked,
because she had fallen ill, like herself, over a love affair, and a Moscow
colonel, whom Kitty had known from childhood, and always seen in
uniform and epaulets, and who now, with his little eyes and his open neck
and flowered cravat, was uncommonly ridiculous and tedious, because
there was no getting rid of him. When all this was so firmly established,
Kitty began to be very much bored, especially as the prince went away to
Carlsbad and she was left alone with her mother. She took no interest in the
people she knew, feeling that nothing fresh would come of them. Her chief
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mental interest in the watering-place consisted in watching and making
theories about the people she did not know. It was characteristic of Kitty
that she always imagined everything in people in the most favorable light
possible, especially so in those she did not know. And now as she made
surmises as to who people were, what were their relations to one another,
and what they were like, Kitty endowed them with the most marvelous and
noble characters, and found confirmation of her idea in her observations.
Of these people the one that attracted her most was a Russian girl who had
come to the watering-place with an invalid Russian lady, Madame Stahl, as
everyone called her. Madame Stahl belonged to the highest society, but she
was so ill that she could not walk, and only on exceptionally fine days
made her appearance at the springs in an invalid carriage. But it was not so
much from ill-health as from pride--so Princess Shtcherbatskaya interpreted
it--that Madame Stahl had not made the acquaintance of anyone among the
Russians there. The Russian girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides
that, she was, as Kitty observed, on friendly terms with all the invalids who
were seriously ill, and there were many of them at the springs, and looked
after them in the most natural way. This Russian girl was not, as Kitty
gathered, related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a paid attendant. Madame
Stahl called her Varenka, and other people called her "Mademoiselle
Varenka." Apart from the interest Kitty took in this girl's relations with
Madame Stahl and with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened,
felt an inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and was aware
when their eyes met that she too liked her.
Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her first
youth, but she was, as it were, a creature without youth; she might have
been taken for nineteen or for thirty. If her features were criticized
separately, she was handsome rather than plain, in spite of the sickly hue of
her face. She would have been a good figure, too, if it had not been for her
extreme thinness and the size of her head, which was too large for her
medium height. But she was not likely to be attractive to men. She was like
a fine flower, already past its bloom and without fragrance, though the
petals were still unwithered. Moreover, she would have been unattractive to
men also from the lack of just what Kitty had too much of--of the
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suppressed fire of vitality, and the consciousness of her own attractiveness.
She always seemed absorbed in work about which there could be no doubt,
and so it seemed she could not take interest in anything outside it. It was
just this contrast with her own position that was for Kitty the great
attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her, in her manner of
life, she would find an example of what she was now so painfully seeking:
interest in life, a dignity in life--apart from the worldly relations of girls
with men, which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now as a shameful
hawking about of goods in search of a purchaser. The more attentively
Kitty watched her unknown friend, the more convinced she was this girl
was the perfect creature she fancied her, and the more eagerly she wished to
make her acquaintance.
The two girls used to meet several times a day, and every time they met,
Kitty's eyes said: "Who are you? What are you? Are you really the
exquisite creature I imagine you to be? But for goodness' sake don't
suppose," her eyes added, "that I would force my acquaintance on you, I
simply admire you and like you." "I like you too, and you're very, very
sweet. And I should like you better still, if I had time," answered the eyes
of the unknown girl. Kitty saw indeed, that she was always busy. Either she
was taking the children of a Russian family home from the springs, or
fetching a shawl for a sick lady, and wrapping her up in it, or trying to
interest an irritable invalid, or selecting and buying cakes for tea for
someone.
Soon after the arrival of the Shtcherbatskys there appeared in the morning
crowd at the springs two persons who attracted universal and unfavorable
attention. These were a tall man with a stooping figure, and huge hands, in
an old coat too short for him, with black, simple, and yet terrible eyes, and
a pockmarked, kind-looking woman, very badly and tastelessly dressed.
Recognizing these persons as Russians, Kitty had already in her
imagination begun constructing a delightful and touching romance about
them. But the princess, having ascertained from the visitors' list that this
was Nikolay Levin and Marya Nikolaevna, explained to Kitty what a bad
man this Levin was, and all her fancies about these two people vanished.
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Not so much from what her mother told her, as from the fact that it was
Konstantin's brother, this pair suddenly seemed to Kitty intensely
unpleasant. This Levin, with his continual twitching of his head, aroused in
her now an irrepressible feeling of disgust.
It seemed to her that his big, terrible eyes, which persistently pursued her,
expressed a feeling of hatred and contempt, and she tried to avoid meeting
him.
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