Chapter 32

The particulars which the princess had learned in regard to Varenka’s past and her relations with Madame Stahl were as follows:

Madame Stahl, of whom some people said that she had worried her husband out of his life, while others said it was he who had made her wretched by his immoral behavior, had always been a woman of weak health and enthusiastic temperament. When, after her separation from her husband, she gave birth to her only child, the child had died almost immediately, and the family of Madame Stahl, knowing her sensibility, and fearing the news would kill her, had substituted another child, a baby born the same night and in the same house in Petersburg, the daughter of the chief cook of the Imperial Household. This was Varenka. Madame Stahl learned later on that Varenka was not her own child, but she went on bringing her up, especially as very soon afterwards Varenka had not a relation of her own living. Madame Stahl had now been living more than ten years continuously abroad, in the south, never leaving her couch. And some people said that Madame Stahl had made her social position as a philanthropic, highly religious woman; other people said she really was at heart the highly ethical being, living for nothing but the good of her fellow creatures, which she represented herself to be. No one knew what her faith was—Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox. But one fact was indubitable—she was in amicable relations with the highest dignitaries of all the churches and sects.

Varenka lived with her all the while abroad, and everyone who knew Madame Stahl knew and liked Mademoiselle Varenka, as everyone called her.

Having learned all these facts, the princess found nothing to object to in her daughter’s intimacy with Varenka, more especially as Varenka’s breeding and education were of the best—she spoke French and English extremely well—and what was of the most weight, brought a message from Madame Stahl expressing her regret that she was prevented by her ill health from making the acquaintance of the princess.

After getting to know Varenka, Kitty became more and more fascinated by her friend, and every day she discovered new virtues in her.

The princess, hearing that Varenka had a good voice, asked her to come and sing to them in the evening.

‘Kitty plays, and we have a piano; not a good one, it’s true, but you will give us so much pleasure,’ said the princess with her affected smile, which Kitty disliked particularly just then, because she noticed that Varenka had no inclination to sing. Varenka came, however, in the evening and brought a roll of music with her. The princess had invited Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter and the colonel.

Varenka seemed quite unaffected by there being persons present she did not know, and she went directly to the piano. She could not accompany herself, but she could sing music at sight very well. Kitty, who played well, accompanied her.

‘You have an extraordinary talent,’ the princess said to her after Varenka had sung the first song extremely well.

Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter expressed their thanks and admiration.

‘Look,’ said the colonel, looking out of the window, ‘what an audience has collected to listen to you.’ There actually was quite a considerable crowd under the windows.

‘I am very glad it gives you pleasure,’ Varenka answered simply.

Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her talent, and her voice, and her face, but most of all by her manner, by the way Varenka obviously thought nothing of her singing and was quite unmoved by their praises. She seemed only to be asking: ‘Am I to sing again, or is that enough?’

‘If it had been I,’ thought Kitty, ‘how proud I should have been! How delighted I should have been to see that crowd under the windows! But she’s utterly unmoved by it. Her only motive is to avoid refusing and to please mamma. What is there in her? What is it gives her the power to look down on everything, to be calm independently of everything? How I should like to know it and to learn it of her!’ thought Kitty, gazing into her serene face. The princess asked Varenka to sing again, and Varenka sang another song, also smoothly, distinctly, and well, standing erect at the piano and beating time on it with her thin, dark-skinned hand.

The next song in the book was an Italian one. Kitty played the opening bars, and looked round at Varenka.

‘Let’s skip that,’ said Varenka, flushing a little. Kitty let her eyes rest on Varenka’s face, with a look of dismay and inquiry.

‘Very well, the next one,’ she said hurriedly, turning over the pages, and at once feeling that there was something connected with the song.

‘No,’ answered Varenka with a smile, laying her hand on the music, ‘no, let’s have that one.’ And she sang it just as quietly, as coolly, and as well as the others.

When she had finished, they all thanked her again, and went off to tea. Kitty and Varenka went out into the little garden that adjoined the house.

‘Am I right, that you have some reminiscences connected with that song?’ said Kitty. ‘Don’t tell me,’ she added hastily, ‘only say if I’m right.’

‘No, why not? I’ll tell you simply,’ said Varenka, and, without waiting for a reply, she went on: ‘Yes, it brings up memories, once painful ones. I cared for someone once, and I used to sing him that song.’

Kitty with big, wide-open eyes gazed silently, sympathetically at Varenka.

‘I cared for him, and he cared for me; but his mother did not wish it, and he married another girl. He’s living now not far from us, and I see him sometimes. You didn’t think I had a love story too,’ she said, and there was a faint gleam in her handsome face of that fire which Kitty felt must once have glowed all over her.

‘I didn’t think so? Why, if I were a man, I could never care for anyone else after knowing you. Only I can’t understand how he could, to please his mother, forget you and make you unhappy; he had no heart.’

‘Oh, no, he’s a very good man, and I’m not unhappy; quite the contrary, I’m very happy. Well, so we shan’t be singing any more now,’ she added, turning towards the house.

‘How good you are! how good you are!’ cried Kitty, and stopping her, she kissed her. ‘If I could only be even a little like you!’

‘Why should you be like anyone? You’re nice as you are,’ said Varenka, smiling her gentle, weary smile.

‘No, I’m not nice at all. Come, tell me…. Stop a minute, let’s sit down,’ said Kitty, making her sit down again beside her. ‘Tell me, isn’t it humiliating to think that a man has disdained your love, that he hasn’t cared for it?…’

‘But he didn’t disdain it; I believe he cared for me, but he was a dutiful son…’

‘Yes, but if it hadn’t been on account of his mother, if it had been his own doing?…’ said Kitty, feeling she was giving away her secret, and that her face, burning with the flush of shame, had betrayed her already.

‘In that case he would have done wrong, and I should not have regretted him,’ answered Varenka, evidently realizing that they were now talking not of her, but of Kitty.

‘But the humiliation,’ said Kitty, ‘the humiliation one can never forget, can never forget,’ she said, remembering her look at the last ball during the pause in the music.

‘Where is the humiliation? Why, you did nothing wrong?’

‘Worse than wrong—shameful.’

Varenka shook her head and laid her hand on Kitty’s hand.

‘Why, what is there shameful?’ she said. ‘You didn’t tell a man, who didn’t care for you, that you loved him, did you?’

‘Of course not; I never said a word, but he knew it. No, no, there are looks, there are ways; I can’t forget it, if I live a hundred years.’

‘Why so? I don’t understand. The whole point is whether you love him now or not,’ said Varenka, who called everything by its name.

‘I hate him; I can’t forgive myself.’

‘Why, what for?’

‘The shame, the humiliation!’

‘Oh! if everyone were as sensitive as you are!’ said Varenka. ‘There isn’t a girl who hasn’t been through the same. And it’s all so unimportant.’

‘Why, what is important?’ said Kitty, looking into her face with inquisitive wonder.

‘Oh, there’s so much that’s important,’ said Varenka, smiling.

‘Why, what?’

‘Oh, so much that’s more important,’ answered Varenka, not knowing what to say. But at that instant they heard the princess’s voice from the window. ‘Kitty, it’s cold! Either get a shawl, or come indoors.’

‘It really is time to go in!’ said Varenka, getting up. ‘I have to go on to Madame Berthe’s; she asked me to.’

Kitty held her by the hand, and with passionate curiosity and entreaty her eyes asked her: ‘What is it, what is this of such importance that gives you such tranquillity? You know, tell me!’ But Varenka did not even know what Kitty’s eyes were asking her. She merely thought that she had to go to see Madame Berthe too that evening, and to make haste home in time for maman’s tea at twelve o’clock. She went indoors, collected her music, and saying good-bye to everyone, was about to go.

‘Allow me to see you home,’ said the colonel.

‘Yes, how can you go alone at night like this?’ chimed in the princess. ‘Anyway, I’ll send Parasha.’

Kitty saw that Varenka could hardly restrain a smile at the idea that she needed an escort.

‘No, I always go about alone and nothing ever happens to me,’ she said, taking her hat. And kissing Kitty once more, without saying what was important, she stepped out courageously with the music under her arm and vanished into the twilight of the summer night, bearing away with her her secret of what was important and what gave her the calm and dignity so much to be envied.

Chapter 33

Kitty made the acquaintance of Madame Stahl too, and this acquaintance, together with her friendship with Varenka, did not merely exercise a great influence on her, it also comforted her in her mental distress. She found this comfort through a completely new world being opened to her by means of this acquaintance, a world having nothing in common with her past, an exalted, noble world, from the height of which she could contemplate her past calmly. It was revealed to her that besides the instinctive life to which Kitty had given herself up hitherto there was a spiritual life. This life was disclosed in religion, but a religion having nothing in common with that one which Kitty had known from childhood, and which found expression in litanies and all-night services at the Widow’s Home, where one might meet one’s friends, and in learning by heart Slavonic texts with the priest. This was a lofty, mysterious religion connected with a whole series of noble thoughts and feelings, which one could do more than merely believe because one was told to, which one could love.

Kitty found all this out not from words. Madame Stahl talked to Kitty as to a charming child that one looks on with pleasure as on the memory of one’s youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ’s compassion for us no sorrow is trifling—and immediately talked of other things. But in every gesture of Madame Stahl, in every word, in every heavenly—as Kitty called it—look, and above all in the whole story of her life, which she heard from Varenka, Kitty recognized that something ‘that was important,’ of which, till then, she had known nothing.

Yet, elevated as Madame Stahl’s character was, touching as was her story, and exalted and moving as was her speech, Kitty could not help detecting in her some traits which perplexed her. She noticed that when questioning her about her family, Madame Stahl had smiled contemptuously, which was not in accord with Christian meekness. She noticed, too, that when she had found a Catholic priest with her, Madame Stahl had studiously kept her face in the shadow of the lamp-shade and had smiled in a peculiar way. Trivial as these two observations were, they perplexed her, and she had her doubts as to Madame Stahl. But on the other hand Varenka, alone in the world, without friends or relations, with a melancholy disappointment in the past, desiring nothing, regretting nothing, was just that perfection of which Kitty dared hardly dream. In Varenka she realized that one has but to forget oneself and love others, and one will be calm, happy, and noble. And that was what Kitty longed to be. Seeing now clearly what was the most important, Kitty was not satisfied with being enthusiastic over it; she at once gave herself up with her whole soul to the new life that was opening to her. From Varenka’s accounts of the doings of Madame Stahl and other people whom she mentioned, Kitty had already constructed the plan of her own future life. She would, like Madame Stahl’s niece, Aline, of whom Varenka had talked to her a great deal, seek out those who were in trouble, wherever she might be living, help them as far as she could, give them the Gospel, read the Gospel to the sick, to criminals, to the dying. The idea of reading the Gospel to criminals, as Aline did, particularly fascinated Kitty. But all these were secret dreams, of which Kitty did not talk either to her mother or to Varenka.

While awaiting the time for carrying out her plans on a large scale, however, Kitty, even then at the springs, where there were so many people ill and unhappy, readily found a chance for practicing her new principles in imitation of Varenka.

At first the princess noticed nothing but that Kitty was much under the influence of her engouement, as she called it, for Madame Stahl, and still more for Varenka. She saw that Kitty did not merely imitate Varenka in her conduct, but unconsciously imitated her in her manner of walking, of talking, of blinking her eyes. But later on the princess noticed that, apart from this adoration, some kind of serious spiritual change was taking place in her daughter.

The princess saw that in the evenings Kitty read a French testament that Madame Stahl had given her—a thing she had never done before; that she avoided society acquaintances and associated with the sick people who were under Varenka’s protection, and especially one poor family, that of a sick painter, Petrov. Kitty was unmistakably proud of playing the part of a sister of mercy in that family. All this was well enough, and the princess had nothing to say against it, especially as Petrov’s wife was a perfectly nice sort of woman, and that the German princess, noticing Kitty’s devotion, praised her, calling her an angel of consolation. All this would have been very well, if there had been no exaggeration. But the princess saw that her daughter was rushing into extremes, and so indeed she told her.

‘Il ne faut jamais rien outrer,’ she said to her.

Her daughter made her no reply, only in her heart she thought that one could not talk about exaggeration where Christianity was concerned. What exaggeration could there be in the practice of a doctrine wherein one was bidden to turn the other cheek when one was smitten, and give one’s cloak if one’s coat were taken? But the princess disliked this exaggeration, and disliked even more the fact that she felt her daughter did not care to show her all her heart. Kitty did in fact conceal her new views and feelings from her mother. She concealed them not because she did not respect or did not love her mother, but simply because she was her mother. She would have revealed them to anyone sooner than to her mother.

‘How is it Anna Pavlovna’s not been to see us for so long?’ the princess said one day of Madame Petrova. ‘I’ve asked her, but she seems put out about something.’

‘No, I’ve not noticed it, maman,’ said Kitty, flushing hotly.

‘Is it long since you went to see them?’

‘We’re meaning to make an expedition to the mountains tomorrow,’ answered Kitty,

‘Well, you can go,’ answered the princess, gazing at her daughter’s embarrassed face and trying to guess the cause of her embarrassment.

That day Varenka came to dinner and told them that Anna Pavlovna had changed her mind and given up the expedition for the morrow. And the princess noticed again that Kitty reddened.

‘Kitty, haven’t you had some misunderstanding with the Petrovs?’ said the princess, when they were left alone. ‘Why has she given up sending the children and coming to see us?’

Kitty answered that nothing had happened between them, and that she could not tell why Anna Pavlovna seemed displeased with her. Kitty answered perfectly truly. She did not know the reason Anna Pavlovna had changed to her, but she guessed it. She guessed at something which she could not tell her mother, which she did not put into words to herself. It was one of those things which one knows but which one can never speak of even to oneself, so terrible and shameful would it be to be mistaken.

Again and again she went over in her memory all her relations with the family. She remembered the simple delight expressed on the round, good-humored face of Anna Pavlovna at their meetings; she remembered their secret confabulations about the invalid, their plots to draw him away from the work which was forbidden him, and to get him out-of-doors; the devotion of the youngest boy, who used to call her ‘my Kitty,’ and would not go to bed without her. How nice it all was! Then she recalled the thin, terribly thin figure of Petrov, with his long neck, in his brown coat, his scant, curly hair, his questioning blue eyes that were so terrible to Kitty at first, and his painful attempts to seem hearty and lively in her presence. She recalled the efforts she had made at first to overcome the repugnance she felt for him, as for all consumptive people, and the pains it had cost her to think of things to say to him. She recalled the timid, softened look with which he gazed at her, and the strange feeling of compassion and awkwardness, and later of a sense of her own goodness, which she had felt at it. How nice it all was! But all that was at first. Now, a few days ago, everything was suddenly spoiled. Anna Pavlovna had met Kitty with affected cordiality, and had kept continual watch on her and on her husband.

Could that touching pleasure he showed when she came near be the cause of Anna Pavlovna’s coolness?

‘Yes,’ she mused, ‘there was something unnatural about Anna Pavlovna, and utterly unlike her good nature, when she said angrily the day before yesterday: ‘There, he will keep waiting for you; he wouldn’t drink his coffee without you, though he’s grown so dreadfully weak.’’

‘Yes, perhaps, too, she didn’t like it when I gave him the rug. It was all so simple, but he took it so awkwardly, and was so long thanking me, that I felt awkward too. And then that portrait of me he did so well. And most of all that look of confusion and tenderness! Yes, yes, that’s it!’ Kitty repeated to herself with horror. ‘No, it can’t be, it oughtn’t to be! He’s so much to be pitied!’ she said to herself directly after.

This doubt poisoned the charm of her new life.