Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part One/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
Anna spent the whole day at home, that is to say, at the Oblonskys', and refused to see any callers, although some of her friends, having learned of her arrival, came to see her. The whole morning was given to Dolly and the children. She sent a note to her brother that he must dine at home.
"Come, God is merciful," she wrote.
Oblonsky accordingly dined at home. The conversation was general, and his wife, when she spoke to him, called him tui (thou), which had not been the case before. The relations between husband and wife remained cool, but nothing more was said about a separation, and Stepan Arkadyevitch saw the possibility of a reconciliation.
Kitty came in soon after dinner. Her acquaintance with Anna Arkadyevna was very slight, and she was not without solicitude as to the welcome which she would receive from this great Petersburg lady, whose praise was in everybody's mouth. But she made a pleasing impression on Anna Arkadyevna; this she immediately realized. Anna evidently admired her youth and beauty, and Kitty was not slow in realizing a sense of being, not only under her influence, but of being in love with her, and immediately fell in love with her, as young girls often fall in love with married women older than themselves. Anna was not like a society woman, or the mother of an eight-year-old son; but, by her vivacity of movement, by the freshness and animation of her face, expressed in her smile and in her eyes, she would have been taken rather for a young girl of twenty, had it not been for a serious and sometimes almost melancholy look, which struck and attracted Kitty.
Kitty felt that she was perfectly natural and sincere, but that there was something about her that suggested a whole world of complicated and poetic interests far beyond her comprehension.
After dinner, when Dolly had gone to her room, Anna went eagerly to her brother, who was smoking a cigar.
"Stiva," said she, giving him a joyous wink, making the sign of the cross, and glancing toward the door, "go, and God help you."
He understood her, and, throwing away his cigar, disappeared behind the door.
As soon as he had gone, Anna sat down upon a divan, surrounded by the children.
Either because they saw that their mamma loved this aunt, or because they themselves felt a special attraction toward her, the two eldest, and therefore the younger, as often happens with children, had taken possession of her even before dinner, and could not leave her alone. And now they were having something like a game, in which each tried to get next to her, to hold her little hand, to kiss her, to play with her rings, or even to cling to the flounces of her gown.
"There! there! let us sit as we were before," said Anna, sitting down in her place.
And Grisha, proud and delighted, thrust his head under his aunt's arm, and nestled up close to her.
"And when is the ball?" she asked of Kitty.
"Next week! it will be a lovely ball—one of those balls where one always has a good time."
"Then there are places where one always has a good time?" asked Anna, in a tone of gentle irony.
"Strange, but it is so. We always enjoy ourselves at the Bobrishchefs' and at the Nikitins', but at the Mezhkofs' it is always dull. Have n't you ever noticed that?"
"No, dusha moya, no ball could be amusing to me," said Anna; and again Kitty saw in her eyes that unknown world, which had not yet been revealed to her. "For me they are all more or less tiresome."
"How could you find a ball tiresome?"
"And why should I not find a ball tiresome?"
Kitty perceived that Anna foresaw what her answer would be:—
"Because you are always the loveliest of all!"
Anna blushed easily; she blushed now, and said:—
"In the first place, that is not true; and in the second, if it were, it would not make any difference."
"Won't you go to this ball?" asked Kitty.
"I think that I would rather not go. Here! take it," said she to Tanya, who was drawing off a loose ring from her delicate white finger.
"I should be delighted if you would go; I should so like to see you at a ball."
"Well, if I have to go, I shall console myself with the thought that I am making you happy ... Grisha, don't pull my hair down! it is disorderly enough now," said she, putting back the rebellious lock with which the lad was playing.
"I can imagine you at a ball dressed in violet."
"Why in violet?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now, children, run away, run away. Don't you hear? Miss Hull is calling you to tea," said she, freeing herself from the children, and sending them out to. the dining room.
"I know why you want me to go to the ball. You expect something wonderful to happen at this ball, and you are anxious for us all to be there so as to share in your happiness."
"How did you know? You are right!"
"Oh, what a lovely age is yours!" continued Anna. "I remember well, and know this purple haze like that which you see hanging over the mountains in Switzerland. This haze covers everything in that delicious time when childhood ends, and from out this immense circle, so joyous, so gay, grows a footpath ever narrower and narrower, and leads gayly and painfully into that labyrinth, and yet it seems so bright and so beautiful .... Who has not passed through it?"
Kitty listened and smiled. "How did she pass through it? How I should like to know the whole romance of her life!" thought Kitty, remembering the unpoetic appearance of her husband, Alekseï Aleksandrovitch.
"I know a thing or two," continued Anna. "Stiva told me, and I congratulate you; he pleased me very much. I met Vronsky at the station."
"Akh! was he there?" asked Kitty, blushing. "What did Stiva tell you?"
"Stiva told me the whole story; and I should be delighted! I came from Petersburg with Vronsky's mother," she continued; "and his mother never ceased to speak of him. He is her favorite. I know how partial mothers are, but.... "
"What did his mother tell you?"
"Akh! many things; and I know that he is her favoite. But still it is evident he has a chivalrous nature. — Well, for example, she told me how he wanted to give up his whole fortune to his brother; how he did something still more wonderful when he was a boy—saved a woman from drowning. In a word, he is a hero!" said Anna, smiling, and remembering the two hundred rubles which he had given at the station.
But she did not tell about the two hundred rubles. Somehow it was not pleasant for her to remember that. She felt that there was something in it that concerned herself too closely, and ought not to have been.
"The countess urged me to come ta see her," continued Anna, "and I should be very happy to meet her again, and I will go to-morrow.—Thank the Lord, Stiva remains a long time with Dolly in the library," she added, changing the subject, and, as Kitty perceived, looking a little annoyed.
"I'll be the first...." "No, I," cried the children, who had just finished their supper, and came running to their Aunt Anna.
"All together," she said, laughing, and running to meet them. She seized them and piled them in a heap, struggling and screaming with delight.