LITMIR.BIZ

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      Chapter 35

       Table of Contents

      THE Prince imparted his good spirits to his household, his friends, and even to his German landlord.

      On returning from the Spring with Kitty, the Prince, who had invited the Colonel, Mary Evgenyevna, and Varenka to come and take coffee, had a table and chairs brought out into the garden under a chestnut tree and breakfast laid there. The landlord and the servants brightened up under his influence. They knew his generosity, and in a quarter of an hour the sick Hamburg doctor, who lived upstairs, was looking with envy from his window at the merry party of healthy Russians gathered under the chestnut tree. Beneath the trembling shadow-circles of the leaves, around a table covered with a white cloth and set out with coffee-pot, bread, butter, cheese and cold game, sat the Princess in a cap with lilac ribbons, handing out cups of coffee and sandwiches. At the other end sat the Prince, making a substantial meal and talking loudly and merrily. He spread out his purchases before him: carved caskets, spillikins, and paper-knives of all kinds, of which he had bought quantities at all the different watering-places, and he gave them away to everybody, including Lischen, the maid, and the landlord, with whom he joked in his funny broken German, assuring him that not the waters had cured Kitty but his excellent food, especially his plum soup. The Princess laughed at her husband for his Russian ways, but was livelier and brighter than she had ever been during her stay at the watering-place. The Colonel smiled, as he always did at the Prince’s jokes; but with regard to Europe (which he thought he had carefully studied) he sided with the Princess. The good-natured Mary Evgenyevna shook with laughter at everything the amusing Prince said, and even Varenka, in a way new to Kitty, succumbed to the feeble but infectious laughter inspired by the Prince’s jokes.

      All this cheered Kitty up, but she could not help being troubled. She could not solve the problem unconsciously set her by her father’s jocular view of her friends and of the life she had begun to love so much. To this problem was added the change in her relations with the Petrovs, which had been so clearly and unpleasantly demonstrated that morning. Everybody was merry, but Kitty could not be merry, and this troubled her still more. She felt almost as she used to feel when, as a child, she was locked up in a room for punishment and heard her sister’s merry laughter.

      ‘Now, why have you bought that mass of things?’ asked the Princess, smiling and passing her husband a cup of coffee.

      ‘One goes out walking, comes to a shop, and they ask one to buy something. It’s “Erlaucht, Excellenz, Durchlaucht [Eminence, Excellence, Serene Highness ].” Well, by the time they get to “Durchlaucht ” I can’t resist, and ten thalers are gone.’

      ‘That’s all because you are bored,’ said the Princess.

      ‘Bored, of course I am! The time hangs so heavy, my dear, that one does not know what to do with oneself.’

      ‘How can you be bored, Prince? There is so much that is interesting in Germany now,’ said Mary Evgenyevna.

      ‘But I know all your interesting things: plum-soup and pea-sausages. I know them. I know it all.’

      ‘No, say what you please, Prince, their institutions are interesting,’ said the Colonel.

      ‘What is there interesting about them? They are as self-satisfied as brass farthings; they’ve conquered everybody. Now tell me what am I to be pleased about? I have not conquered anybody, but here I have to take off my own boots and even put them outside the door myself. In the morning I have to get up and dress at once and go down to the dining-room to drink bad tea. Is it like that at home? There one wakes up without any hurry, gets a bit cross about something, grumbles a bit, comes well to one’s senses, and thinks everything well over without hurrying.’

      ‘But “time is money”, don’t forget that,’ said the Colonel.

      ‘It all depends on what time! There are times when one would give a whole month for a shilling and there are times when you would not give half an hour at any price. Is not that so, Kitty? Why are you so glum?’

      ‘I’m all right.’

      ‘Where are you off to? Stay a little longer,’ he said, turning to Varenka.

      ‘I must get home,’ said Varenka, rising and bursting into another fit of laughter. When she had recovered, she took leave and went into the house for her hat.

      Kitty followed her. Even Varenka seemed different now. She was not worse, but different from what Kitty previously had imagined her to be.

      ‘Oh dear, I have not laughed so much for a long time!’ said Varenka, collecting her sunshade and bag. ‘What a dear your Papa is!’

      Kitty remained silent.

      ‘When shall we meet?’ asked Varenka.

      ‘Mama was going to call on the Petrovs. Will you be there?’ asked Kitty, trying to sound Varenka.

      ‘I will,’ answered Varenka. ‘They are preparing to leave, so I have promised to help them pack.’

      ‘Then I’ll come too.’

      ‘No, why should you?’

      ‘Why not, why not, why not?’ asked Kitty with wide-open eyes, and holding Varenka’s sunshade to prevent her going. ‘No, wait a bit, tell me why not.’

      ‘Oh, nothing. Only your Papa has returned, and they don’t feel at ease with you.’

      ‘No, no, tell me why you do not wish me to be often at the Petrovs? You don’t, do you? Why?’

      ‘I have not said so,’ replied Varenka quietly.

      ‘No, please tell me!’

      ‘Shall I tell you everything?’ said Varenka.

      ‘Everything, everything!’ said Kitty.

      ‘There is nothing special to tell, only Petrov used to want to leave sooner but now does not want to go,’ said Varenka smiling.

      ‘Well, go on,’ Kitty hurried her, looking at her with a frown.

      ‘Well, I don’t know why, but Anna Pavlovna says he does not want to go, because you are here. Of course that was tactless, but they quarrelled about you. And you know how excitable such invalids are.’

      Kitty frowned yet more, and remained silent, and only Varenka spoke, trying to soften and soothe Kitty, and foreseeing an approaching explosion of tears or words, she knew not which.

      ‘So it is better for you not to go… . And, you understand, don’t be hurt …’

      ‘It serves me right, it serves me right!’ Kitty began hurriedly, snatching Varenka’s sunshade out of her hands, and looking past her friend’s eyes.

      Varenka felt like smiling at her friend’s childish anger but feared to offend her.

      ‘Why — serves you right? I don’t understand,’ she said.

      ‘It serves me right because it was all pretence, all invented and not heartfelt. What business had I with a stranger? So it comes about that I am the cause of a quarrel, and have been doing what nobody asked me to do. Because it is all pretence, pretence and pretence! …’

      ‘But what motive had you for pretending?’ said Varenka softly.

      ‘Oh, how stupid, how stupid! There was no need at all… . It was all pretence!’ Kitty said, opening and shutting the sunshade.

      ‘But with what object?’

      ‘To appear better than others to myself and to God — to deceive everybody. No, I shall not give in to that again! Let me be bad, but at any rate not false, not a humbug!’

      ‘But who is a “humbug”?’ asked Varenka reproachfully. ‘You speak as if …’

      But Kitty was in one of her fits of passion. She would not let

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