Anna Karenina

he young Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was the first
winter that she had been out in the world. Her success in society had
been greater than that of either of her elder sisters, and greater even
than her mother had anticipated. To say nothing of the young men who
danced at the Moscow balls being almost all in love with Kitty, two
serious suitors had already this first winter made their appearance:
Levin, and immediately after his departure, Count Vronsky.

Levin’s appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent visits,
and evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious conversations
between Kitty’s parents as to her future, and to disputes between them.
The prince was on Levin’s side; he said he wished for nothing better
for Kitty. The princess for her part, going round the question in the
manner peculiar to women, maintained that Kitty was too young, that
Levin had done nothing to prove that he had serious intentions, that
Kitty felt no great attraction to him, and other side issues; but she
did not state the principal point, which was that she looked for a
better match for her daughter, and that Levin was not to her liking,
and she did not understand him. When Levin had abruptly departed, the
princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly: “You see
I was right.” When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more
delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was to make not simply a
good, but a brilliant match.

In the mother’s eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky and
Levin. She disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising opinions
and his shyness in society, founded, as she supposed, on his pride and
his queer sort of life, as she considered it, absorbed in cattle and
peasants. She did not very much like it that he, who was in love with
her daughter, had kept coming to the house for six weeks, as though he
were waiting for something, inspecting, as though he were afraid he
might be doing them too great an honor by making an offer, and did not
realize that a man, who continually visits at a house where there is a
young unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions clear. And
suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. “It’s as well he’s not
attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him,” thought
the mother.

Vronsky satisfied all the mother’s desires. Very wealthy, clever, of
aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant career in the army
and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing better could be wished
for.

Vronsky openly flirted with Kitty at balls, danced with her, and came
continually to the house, consequently there could be no doubt of the
seriousness of his intentions. But, in spite of that, the mother had
spent the whole of that winter in a state of terrible anxiety and
agitation.

Princess Shtcherbatskaya had herself been married thirty years ago, her
aunt arranging the match. Her husband, about whom everything was well
known beforehand, had come, looked at his future bride, and been looked
at. The matchmaking aunt had ascertained and communicated their mutual
impression. That impression had been favorable. Afterwards, on a day
fixed beforehand, the expected offer was made to her parents, and
accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed, at
least, to the princess. But over her own daughters she had felt how far
from simple and easy is the business, apparently so commonplace, of
marrying off one’s daughters. The panics that had been lived through,
the thoughts that had been brooded over, the money that had been
wasted, and the disputes with her husband over marrying the two elder
girls, Darya and Natalia! Now, since the youngest had come out, she was
going through the same terrors, the same doubts, and still more violent
quarrels with her husband than she had over the elder girls. The old
prince, like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the
score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was irrationally
jealous over his daughters, especially over Kitty, who was his
favorite. At every turn he had scenes with the princess for
compromising her daughter. The princess had grown accustomed to this
already with her other daughters, but now she felt that there was more
ground for the prince’s touchiness. She saw that of late years much was
changed in the manners of society, that a mother’s duties had become
still more difficult. She saw that girls of Kitty’s age formed some
sort of clubs, went to some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men’s
society; drove about the streets alone, many of them did not curtsey,
and, what was the most important thing, all the girls were firmly
convinced that to choose their husbands was their own affair, and not
their parents’. “Marriages aren’t made nowadays as they used to be,”
was thought and said by all these young girls, and even by their
elders. But how marriages were made now, the princess could not learn
from anyone. The French fashion—of the parents arranging their
children’s future—was not accepted; it was condemned. The English
fashion of the complete independence of girls was also not accepted,
and not possible in Russian society. The Russian fashion of matchmaking
by the offices of intermediate persons was for some reason considered
unseemly; it was ridiculed by everyone, and by the princess herself.
But how girls were to be married, and how parents were to marry them,
no one knew. Everyone with whom the princess had chanced to discuss the
matter said the same thing: “Mercy on us, it’s high time in our day to
cast off all that old-fashioned business. It’s the young people have to
marry; and not their parents; and so we ought to leave the young people
to arrange it as they choose.” It was very easy for anyone to say that
who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in the process of
getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall
in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was quite
unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the
princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives
for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have
been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable
playthings for children five years old ought to be loaded pistols. And
so the princess was more uneasy over Kitty than she had been over her
elder sisters.

Now she was afraid that Vronsky might confine himself to simply
flirting with her daughter. She saw that her daughter was in love with
him, but tried to comfort herself with the thought that he was an
honorable man, and would not do this. But at the same time she knew how
easy it is, with the freedom of manners of today, to turn a girl’s
head, and how lightly men generally regard such a crime. The week
before, Kitty had told her mother of a conversation she had with
Vronsky during a mazurka. This conversation had partly reassured the
princess; but perfectly at ease she could not be. Vronsky had told
Kitty that both he and his brother were so used to obeying their mother
that they never made up their minds to any important undertaking
without consulting her. “And just now, I am impatiently awaiting my
mother’s arrival from Petersburg, as peculiarly fortunate,” he told
her.

Kitty had repeated this without attaching any significance to the
words. But her mother saw them in a different light. She knew that the
old lady was expected from day to day, that she would be pleased at her
son’s choice, and she felt it strange that he should not make his offer
through fear of vexing his mother. However, she was so anxious for the
marriage itself, and still more for relief from her fears, that she
believed it was so. Bitter as it was for the princess to see the
unhappiness of her eldest daughter, Dolly, on the point of leaving her
husband, her anxiety over the decision of her youngest daughter’s fate
engrossed all her feelings. Today, with Levin’s reappearance, a fresh
source of anxiety arose. She was afraid that her daughter, who had at
one time, as she fancied, a feeling for Levin, might, from extreme
sense of honor, refuse Vronsky, and that Levin’s arrival might
generally complicate and delay the affair so near being concluded.

“Why, has he been here long?” the princess asked about Levin, as they
returned home.

“He came today, mamma.”

“There’s one thing I want to say....” began the princess, and from her
serious and alert face, Kitty guessed what it would be.

“Mamma,” she said, flushing hotly and turning quickly to her, “please,
please don’t say anything about that. I know, I know all about it.”

She wished for what her mother wished for, but the motives of her
mother’s wishes wounded her.

“I only want to say that to raise hopes....”

“Mamma, darling, for goodness’ sake, don’t talk about it. It’s so
horrible to talk about it.”

“I won’t,” said her mother, seeing the tears in her daughter’s eyes;
“but one thing, my love; you promised me you would have no secrets from
me. You won’t?”

“Never, mamma, none,” answered Kitty, flushing a little, and looking
her mother straight in the face, “but there’s no use in my telling you
anything, and I ... I ... if I wanted to, I don’t know what to say or
how.... I don’t know....”

“No, she could not tell an untruth with those eyes,” thought the
mother, smiling at her agitation and happiness. The princess smiled
that what was taking place just now in her soul seemed to the poor
child so immense and so important.