‘Well, you see you are very consistent,’ said Oblonsky. ‘It is both a virtue and a fault in you. You have a consistent character yourself and you wish all the facts of life to be consistent, but they never are. For instance you despise public service because you want work always to correspond to its aims, and that never happens. You also want the activity of each separate man to have an aim, and love and family life always to coincide — and that doesn’t happen either. All the variety, charm and beauty of life are made up of light and shade.’
Levin sighed and did not answer. He was thinking of his own affairs and not listening to Oblonsky.
And suddenly both felt that though they were friends, and had dined and drunk wine together which should have drawn them yet closer, yet each was thinking only of his own affairs and was not concerned with the other.
Oblonsky had more than once experienced this kind of acute estrangement instead of union following a dinner with a friend, and knew what to do in such a case.
‘The bill!’ he shouted and went out into the dining-hall, where he immediately saw an aide-de-camp of his acquaintance, and entered into conversation with him about an actress and her protector. And immediately in conversation with the aide-de-camp Oblonsky felt relief and rest after the talk with Levin, who always demanded of him too great a mental and spiritual strain.
When the Tartar returned with a bill for twenty-six roubles odd, Levin quite unconcernedly paid his share, which with the tip came to fourteen roubles, a sum that usually would have horrified his rustic conscience, and went home to dress and go on to the Shcherbatskys’ where his fate was to be decided.
Chapter 12
PRINCESS KITTY SHCHERBATSKAYA was eighteen, and this was her first season. Her success in Society was greater than that of her two elder sisters, and greater even than her mother had expected. Not only were nearly all the youths that danced at the Moscow balls in love with Kitty, but two serious suitors presented themselves for her that very first winter: Levin and, immediately after his departure, Count Vronsky.
Levin’s arrival at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits and evident love for Kitty gave rise to her parents’ first serious deliberation as to her future, and to disputes between them. The Prince took Levin’s part and said he desired nothing better for Kitty. The Princess with a woman’s way of talking round the question said that Kitty was too young, that Levin had not shown that his intentions were serious, that Kitty was not in love with him, and so on; but she did not say the most important things, namely that she expected a better match for her daughter, that she did not like Levin and did not understand him. When he suddenly left, the Princess was pleased and triumphantly said to her husband, ‘You see, I was right!’ When Vronsky appeared she was still more pleased and was strengthened in her opinion that Kitty ought to make not only a good but a brilliant match.
In the mother’s eyes there was no comparison between Levin and Vronsky. She did not like Levin’s strange and harsh criticisms, his awkward manner in Society which she attributed to pride, and what she considered his strange way of life in the country, occupied with cattle and peasants; in particular she did not like the fact that when he was in love with her daughter he came to the house for six weeks as if waiting and looking out for something, afraid of doing them too great an honour by making an offer of marriage, and that he did not understand that, if he visited at a house where there was a marriageable girl, he ought to declare his intentions. And then suddenly he left without proposing!
‘It’s a good thing he is so unattractive, and that Kitty has not fallen in love with him,’ thought her mother.
Vronsky satisfied all the mother’s desires: he was very rich, clever, distinguished, with a brilliant military career before him, a position at Court, and altogether was an enchanting man. Nothing better could be desired.
Vronsky was openly attentive to Kitty when they met at balls, danced with her, and came to the house, so there could be no doubt as to the seriousness of his intentions. But in spite of this the mother was in a dreadful state of anxiety and agitation all that winter.
When the Princess herself had married, more than thirty years before, the match had been arranged by an aunt. Her fiancé about whom everything was known beforehand came, saw his intended bride, and was seen by her people; then the matchmaking aunt learnt what was thought on each side, and passed on the information. All was satisfactory. Afterwards at an appointed time and place the expected proposal was made to, and accepted by, her parents. Everything was done very easily and simply. At least so it seemed to the Princess. But in her daughters’ case she experienced how far from easy and simple the apparently easy business of marrying off a daughter really was. What anxiety she had to suffer, how many questions to consider over and over again, how much money to spend, how many encounters with her husband to go through, when her two elder daughters Darya and Nataly were married! Now that her youngest daughter had come out she was living through the same fears and doubts, and having even worse disputes with her husband than on her elder daughters’ account. Like all fathers, the old Prince was extremely punctilious where his daughters’ purity and honour were concerned; he was unreasonably jealous especially about Kitty, his favourite, and at every step reproached the Princess with compromising her daughter. The Princess had grown used to this in respect to her elder daughters, but now she felt that her husband’s punctiliousness had more justification. She could see that lately social customs had changed very much and a mother’s duties had become still more difficult. She knew that girls of Kitty’s age formed societies of some sort, went to courses of lectures, made friends freely with men, and drove alone through the streets; many no longer curtsied, and above all every one of them was firmly convinced that the choice of a husband was her own and not her parents’ business. ‘Nowadays they don’t give us away in marriage as they used to!’ said these young girls, and even the old people said the same. But how marriages are now arranged the Princess could not find out from anyone.
The French way, of parents deciding a daughter’s fate, was not accepted, and was even condemned. The English way, of giving a girl perfect freedom, was also rejected, and would have been impossible in Russian Society. The Russian way, of employing a professional matchmaker, was considered monstrous, and was laughed at by everybody, including the Princess herself. But how a girl was to get married, or how a mother was to get a daughter given in marriage, no one knew. Every one with whom the Princess discussed the subject said the same thing: ‘Well, you know, in our days it is time to give up obsolete customs. After all it’s the young people who marry and not their parents, therefore they must be left to arrange matters as they think best.’ It was all very well for people who had no daughters to talk like that, but the Princess knew that intimacy might be followed by love and that her daughter might fall in love with some one who had no intention of marrying or was not fit to be her husband. And whatever people might say about the time having come when young people must arrange their future for themselves, she could not believe it any more than she could believe that loaded pistols could ever be the best toys for five-year-old children. That is why the Princess was more anxious about Kitty than she had been about her elder daughters.
And now she was afraid that Vronsky might content himself with merely flirting with her daughter. She saw that Kitty was in love with him, but consoled herself with the thought that Vronsky was an honest man and therefore would not act in such a way. At the same time she knew that the freedom now permitted made it easy for a man to turn a girl’s head, and knew how lightly men regarded an offence of that kind. The week before, Kitty had repeated to her mother a conversation she had had with Vronsky while dancing the mazurka with him. This conversation had partly reassured the Princess; but she could not feel quite at ease. Vronsky had told Kitty that he and his brother were so used to comply with their mother’s wishes that they never made up their minds to take an important step without consulting her. ‘And I am now especially happy looking forward to my mother’s arrival from Petersburg,’ he had said.
Kitty had narrated this without attaching any special meaning to the words. But to her mother they appeared in a different