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“Well, and we had better.”
“But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I don’t try to catch
them in the least. A young man, and a very nice one, has fallen in love
with her, and she, I fancy...”
“Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love, and he’s no
more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh, that I should live to see it!
Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah! the ball!” And the prince, imagining
that he was mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word.
“And this is how we’re preparing wretchedness for Kitty; and she’s
really got the notion into her head...”
“But what makes you suppose so?”
“I don’t suppose; I know. We have eyes for such things, though
women-folk haven’t. I see a man who has serious intentions, that’s
Levin: and I see a peacock, like this feather-head, who’s only amusing
himself.”
“Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your head!...”
“Well, you’ll remember my words, but too late, just as with Dolly.”
“Well, well, we won’t talk of it,” the princess stopped him, recollect-
ing her unlucky Dolly.
“By all means, and good night!”
And signing each other with the cross, the husband and wife parted
with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of their own opinion.
The princess had at first been quite certain that that evening had
settled Kitty’s future, and theat there could be no doubt of Vronsky’s
intentions, but her husband’s words had disturbed her. And returning
to her own room, in terror before the unknown future, she, too, like
Kitty, repeated several times in her heart, “Lord, have pity; Lord, have
pity; Lord, have pity.”
Chapter 16.
Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother had been in
her youth a brilliant society woman, who had had during her married
life, and still more afterwards, many love affairs notorious in the whole
fashionable world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had
been educated in the Corps of Pages.
Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he had at once
got into the circle of wealthy Petersburg army men. Although he did go
more or less into Petersburg society, his love affairs had always hitherto
been outside it.
In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his luxurious and
coarse life at Petersburg, all the charm of intimacy with a sweet and
innocent girl of his own rank, who cared for him. It never even entered
his head that there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At
balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant visitor at their
house. He talked to her as people commonly do talk in society—all
sorts of nonsense, but nonsense to which he could not help attaching a
special meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that he
could not have said before everybody, he felt that she was becoming
more and more dependent upon him, and the more he felt this, the
better he liked it, and the tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not
know that his mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite