Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 34
“Well, let us go, then,” said Kitty, turning round resolutely. “How are you feeling
today?” she asked Petrov.
Petrov got up, leaning on his stick, and looked shyly at the prince.
“This is my daughter,” said the prince. “Let me introduce myself.”
The painter bowed and smiled, showing his strangely dazzling white teeth.
“We expected you yesterday, princess,” he said to Kitty. He staggered as he said
this, and then repeated the motion, trying to make it seem as if it had been intentional.
“I meant to come, but Varenka said that Anna Pavlovna sent word you were not
going.”
“Not going!” said Petrov, blushing, and immediately beginning to cough, and his
eyes sought his wife. “Anita! Anita!” he said loudly, and the swollen veins stood
out like cords on his thin white neck.
Anna Pavlovna came up.
“So you sent word to the princess that we weren’t going!” he whispered to her
angrily, losing his voice.
“Good morning, princess,” said Anna Pavlovna, with an assumed smile utterly
unlike her former manner. “Very glad to make your acquaintance,” she said to the
prince. “You’ve long been expected, prince.”
“What did you send word to the princess that we weren’t going for?” the artist
whispered hoarsely once more, still more angrily, obviously exasperated that his
voice failed him so that he could not give his words the expression he would have
liked to.
“Oh, mercy on us! I thought we weren’t going,” his wife answered crossly.
“What, when....” He coughed and waved his hand. The prince took off his hat and
moved away with his daughter.
“Ah! ah!” he sighed deeply. “Oh, poor things!”
“Yes, papa,” answered Kitty. “And you must know they’ve three children, no
servant, and scarcely any means. He gets something from the Academy,” she went
on briskly, trying to drown the distress that the queer change in Anna Pavlovna’s
manner to her had aroused in her.
“Oh, here’s Madame Stahl,” said Kitty, indicating an invalid carriage, where,
propped on pillows, something in gray and blue was lying under a sunshade. This
was Madame Stahl. Behind her stood the gloomy, healthy-looking German workman
who pushed the carriage. Close by was standing a flaxen-headed Swedish
count, whom Kitty knew by name. Several invalids were lingering near the low
carriage, staring at the lady as though she were some curiosity.
The prince went up to her, and Kitty detected that disconcerting gleam of irony
in his eyes. He went up to Madame Stahl, and addressed her with extreme courtesy
and affability in that excellent French that so few speak nowadays.
“I don’t know if you remember me, but I must recall myself to thank you for your
kindness to my daughter,” he said, taking off his hat and not putting it on again.
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