Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO
Chapter 1
AT the end of the winter, in the Shtcherbatskys’ house, a consultation was being
held, which was to pronounce on the state of Kitty’s health and the measures to
be taken to restore her failing strength. She had been ill, and as spring came on she
grew worse. The family doctor gave her cod liver oil, then iron, then nitrate of silver,
but as the first and the second and the third were alike in doing no good, and as
his advice when spring came was to go abroad, a celebrated physician was called in.
The celebrated physician, a very handsome man, still youngish, asked to examine the
patient. He maintained, with peculiar satisfaction, it seemed, that maiden modesty
is a mere relic of barbarism, and that nothing could be more natural than for a man
still youngish to handle a young girl naked. He thought it natural because he did
it every day, and felt and thought, as it seemed to him, no harm as he did it and
consequently he considered modesty in the girl not merely as a relic of barbarism,
but also as an insult to himself.
There was nothing for it but to submit, since, although all the doctors had studied
in the same school, had read the same books, and learned the same science, and
though some people said this celebrated doctor was a bad doctor, in the princess’s
household and circle it was for some reason accepted that this celebrated doctor
alone had some special knowledge, and that he alone could save Kitty. After a careful
examination and sounding of the bewildered patient, dazed with shame, the celebrated
doctor, having scrupulously washed his hands, was standing in the drawing
room talking to the prince. The prince frowned and coughed, listening to the doctor.
As a man who had seen something of life, and neither a fool nor an invalid,
he had no faith in medicine, and in his heart was furious at the whole farce, specially
as he was perhaps the only one who fully comprehended the cause of Kitty’s
illness. “Conceited blockhead!” he thought, as he listened to the celebrated doctor’s
chatter about his daughter’s symptoms. The doctor was meantime with difficulty
restraining the expression of his contempt for this old gentleman, and with difficulty
condescending to the level of his intelligence. He perceived that it was no good
talking to the old man, and that the principal person in the house was the mother.
Before her he decided to scatter his pearls. At that instant the princess came into the
drawing room with the family doctor. The prince withdrew, trying not to show how
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