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ing the gleam of irony that kindled in the prince’s eyes at the mention
of Madame Stahl.
“I used to know her husband, and her too a little, before she’d
joined the Pietists.”
“What is a Pietist, papa?” asked Kitty, dismayed to find that what
she prized so highly in Madame Stahl had a name.
“I don’t quite know myself. I only know that she thanks God for
everything, for every misfortune, and thanks God too that her husband
died. And that’s rather droll, as they didn’t get on together.”
“Who’s that? What a piteous face!” he asked, noticing a sick man
of medium height sitting on a bench, wearing a brown overcoat and
white trousers that fell in strange folds about his long, fleshless legs.
This man lifted his straw hat, showed his scanty curly hair and high
forehead, painfully reddened by the pressure of the hat.
“That’s Petrov, an artist,” answered Kitty, blushing. “And that’s his
wife,” she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna, who, as though on pur-
pose, at the very instant they approached walked away after a child
that had run off along a path.
“Poor fellow! and what a nice face he has!” said the prince. “Why
don’t you go up to him? He wanted to speak to you.”
“Well, let us go, then,” said Kitty, turning round resolutely. “How
are you feeling today?” she asked Petrov.
Petrov got up, leaning on his stick, and looked shyly at the prince.
“This is my daughter,” said the prince. “Let me introduce myself.”
The painter bowed and smiled, showing his strangely dazzling
white teeth.
“We expected you yesterday, princess,” he said to Kitty. He stag-
gered as he said this, and then repeated the motion, trying to make it
seem as if it had been intentional.
“I meant to come, but Varenka said that Anna Pavlovna sent word
you were not going.”
“Not going!” said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to
cough, and his eyes sought his wife. “Anita! Anita!” he said loudly, and
the swollen veins stood out like cords on his thin white neck.
Anna Pavlovna came up.
“So you sent word to the princess that we weren’t going!” he whis-
pered to her angrily, losing his voice.
“Good morning, princess,” said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed
smile utterly unlike her former manner. “Very glad to make your ac-
quaintance,” she said to the prince. “You’ve long been expected, prince.”
“What did you send word to the princess that we weren’t going
for?” the artist whispered hoarsely once more, still more angrily, obvi-
ously exasperated that his voice failed him so that he could not give his
words the expression he would have liked to.
“Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren’t going,” his wife answered
crossly.
“What, when....” He coughed and waved his hand. The prince
took off his hat and moved away with his daughter.
“Ah! ah!” he sighed deeply. “Oh, poor things!”
“Yes, papa,” answered Kitty. “And you must know they’ve three
children, no servant, and scarcely any means. He gets something from
the Academy,” she went on briskly, trying to drown the distress that
the queer change in Anna Pavlovna’s manner to her had aroused in
her.
“Oh, here’s Madame Stahl,” said Kitty, indicating an invalid car-
riage, where, propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying
under a sunshade. This was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the
gloomy, healthy-looking German workman who pushed the carriage.