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“I can’t help it. I’m never happy except with the children at your
house.”
“What a pity you can’t be with me!”
“Oh, yes, I’m coming. I’ve had scarlatina, and I’ll persuade mamma
to let me.”
Kitty insisted on having her way, and went to stay at her sister’s and
nursed the children all through the scarlatina, for scarlatina it turned
out to be. The two sisters brought all the six children successfully
through it, but Kitty was no better in health, and in Lent the
Shtcherbatskys went abroad.
Chapter 4.
The highest Petersburg society is essentially one: in it everyone
knows everyone else, everyone even visits everyone else. But this
great set has its subdivisions. Anna Arkadyevna Karenina had friends
and close ties in three different circles of this highest society. One circle
was her husband’s government official set, consisting of his colleagues
and subordinates, brought together in the most various and capricious
manner, and belonging to different social strata. Anna found it diffi-
cult now to recall the feeling of almost awe-stricken reverence which
she had at first entertained for these persons. Now she knew all of
them as people know one another in a country town; she knew their
habits and weaknesses, and where the shoe pinched each one of them.
She knew their relations with one another and with the head authori-
ties, knew who was for whom, and how each one maintained his posi-
tion, and where they agreed and disagreed. But the circle of political,
masculine interests had never interested her, in spite of countess Kidia
Ivanovna’s influence, and she avoided it.
Another little set with which Anna was in close relations was the
one by means of which Alexey Alexandrovitch had made his career.
The center of this circle was the Countess Lidia Ivanovna. It was a set
made up of elderly, ugly, benevolent, and godly women, and clever,
learned, and ambitious men. One of the clever people belonging to the