LITMIR.BIZ

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the match had been arranged by an aunt. Her fiancé about whom everything was known beforehand came, saw his intended bride, and was seen by her people; then the matchmaking aunt learnt what was thought on each side, and passed on the information. All was satisfactory. Afterwards at an appointed time and place the expected proposal was made to, and accepted by, her parents. Everything was done very easily and simply. At least so it seemed to the Princess. But in her daughters’ case she experienced how far from easy and simple the apparently easy business of marrying off a daughter really was. What anxiety she had to suffer, how many questions to consider over and over again, how much money to spend, how many encounters with her husband to go through, when her two elder daughters Darya and Nataly were married! Now that her youngest daughter had come out she was living through the same fears and doubts, and having even worse disputes with her husband than on her elder daughters’ account. Like all fathers, the old Prince was extremely punctilious where his daughters’ purity and honour were concerned; he was unreasonably jealous especially about Kitty, his favourite, and at every step reproached the Princess with compromising her daughter. The Princess had grown used to this in respect to her elder daughters, but now she felt that her husband’s punctiliousness had more justification. She could see that lately social customs had changed very much and a mother’s duties had become still more difficult. She knew that girls of Kitty’s age formed societies of some sort, went to courses of lectures, made friends freely with men, and drove alone through the streets; many no longer curtsied, and above all every one of them was firmly convinced that the choice of a husband was her own and not her parents’ business. ‘Nowadays they don’t give us away in marriage as they used to!’ said these young girls, and even the old people said the same. But how marriages are now arranged the Princess could not find out from anyone.

      The French way, of parents deciding a daughter’s fate, was not accepted, and was even condemned. The English way, of giving a girl perfect freedom, was also rejected, and would have been impossible in Russian Society. The Russian way, of employing a professional matchmaker, was considered monstrous, and was laughed at by everybody, including the Princess herself. But how a girl was to get married, or how a mother was to get a daughter given in marriage, no one knew. Every one with whom the Princess discussed the subject said the same thing: ‘Well, you know, in our days it is time to give up obsolete customs. After all it’s the young people who marry and not their parents, therefore they must be left to arrange matters as they think best.’ It was all very well for people who had no daughters to talk like that, but the Princess knew that intimacy might be followed by love and that her daughter might fall in love with some one who had no intention of marrying or was not fit to be her husband. And whatever people might say about the time having come when young people must arrange their future for themselves, she could not believe it any more than she could believe that loaded pistols could ever be the best toys for five-year-old children. That is why the Princess was more anxious about Kitty than she had been about her elder daughters.

      And now she was afraid that Vronsky might content himself with merely flirting with her daughter. She saw that Kitty was in love with him, but consoled herself with the thought that Vronsky was an honest man and therefore would not act in such a way. At the same time she knew that the freedom now permitted made it easy for a man to turn a girl’s head, and knew how lightly men regarded an offence of that kind. The week before, Kitty had repeated to her mother a conversation she had had with Vronsky while dancing the mazurka with him. This conversation had partly reassured the Princess; but she could not feel quite at ease. Vronsky had told Kitty that he and his brother were so used to comply with their mother’s wishes that they never made up their minds to take an important step without consulting her. ‘And I am now especially happy looking forward to my mother’s arrival from Petersburg,’ he had said.

      Kitty had narrated this without attaching any special meaning to the words. But to her mother they appeared in a different light. She knew that the old lady was expected any day, and would approve of her son’s choice; and though she thought it strange that he should delay proposing for fear of hurting his mother, she so desired the marriage, and especially relief from her own anxiety, that she believed it.

      Hard as it was to see the misfortune of Dolly, her eldest daughter (who thought of leaving her husband), the Princess’s anxiety as to her youngest daughter’s fate, now about to be decided, entirely absorbed her. Levin’s arrival that day gave her further cause for anxiety. She was afraid that her daughter who had once seemed to have a certain affection for Levin might be led by an exaggerated feeling of loyalty to reject Vronsky, and she feared that in general Levin’s arrival might cause complications and delays in matters now so near conclusion.

      ‘Has he been back long?’ asked the Princess when they got home, referring to Levin.

      ‘He arrived to-day, Mama.’

      ‘There is one thing I want to say …’ the Princess began, and from her serious look Kitty guessed what was coming.

      ‘Mama,’ she said flushing and turning quickly toward her mother, ‘please, please, say nothing about it! I know, I know quite well.’

      Her wish was the same as her mother’s, but the motive underlying her mother’s wish offended her.

      ‘I wish to say that having given hopes to one …’

      ‘Mama, dearest, for Heaven’s sake don’t speak. It is so dreadful to speak about it!’

      ‘I won’t, — only this, my darling,’ said the mother, seeing tears in her daughter’s eyes, ‘… you promised not to have any secrets from me and you won’t, will you?’

      ‘Never, Mama, never at all,’ answered Kitty blushing as she looked her mother straight in the face. ‘But I have nothing to say at present … I … I … if I wished to, I should not know what to say or how … I don’t know …’

      ‘No, she could not possibly tell an untruth with such eyes,’ thought the mother smiling at her agitation and joy. The Princess smiled to think how immense and important what was going on in her own soul must appear to the poor girl.

      Chapter 13

      DURING the interval between dinner and the beginning of the evening party, Kitty experienced something resembling a young man’s feelings before a battle. Her heart was beating violently and she could not fix her thoughts on anything.

      She felt that this evening, when those two men were to meet for the first time, would decide her fate; and she kept picturing them to herself, now individually and now together. When she thought of the past, she dwelt with pleasure and tenderness on her former relations with Levin. Memories of childhood and of Levin’s friendship with her dead brother lent a peculiar poetic charm to her relations with him. His love for her, of which she felt sure, flattered and rejoiced her, and she could think of him with a light heart. With her thought of Vronsky was mingled some uneasiness, though he was an extremely well-bred and quiet-mannered man; a sense of something false, not in him, for he was very simple and kindly, but in herself; whereas in relation to Levin she felt herself quite simple and clear. On the other hand when she pictured to herself a future with Vronsky a brilliant vision of happiness rose up before her, while a future with Levin appeared wrapped in mist.

      On going upstairs to dress for the evening and looking in the glass, she noticed with pleasure that this was one of her best days, and that she was in full possession of all her forces, which would be so much wanted for what lay before her. She was conscious of external calmness and of freedom and grace in her movements.

      At half-past seven, as soon as she had come down into the drawing-room, the footman announced ‘Constantine Dmitrich Levin!’ The Princess was still in her bedroom, nor had the Prince yet come down.

      ‘So it’s to be!’ thought Kitty and the blood rushed to her heart. Glancing at the mirror she was horrified at her pallor.

      She felt sure that he had come so early on purpose to see her alone and to propose to her. And now for the first time the matter presented itself to her in a different and entirely new light. Only now did she realize that this matter (with whom she would be happy, who was the man she loved)

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