Part Seven: Chapter 1

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The Levins had been three months in Moscow. The date had longpassed on which, according to the most trustworthy calculationsof people learned in such matters, Kitty should have beenconfined. But she was still about, and there was nothing to showthat her time was any nearer than two months ago. The doctor,the monthly nurse, and Dolly and her mother, and most of allLevin, who could not think of the approaching event withoutterror, began to be impatient and uneasy. Kitty was the onlyperson who felt perfectly calm and happy.

　　She was distinctly conscious now of the birth of a new feeling oflove for the future child, for her to some extent actuallyexisting already, and she brooded blissfully over this feeling.He was not by now altogether a part of herself, but sometimeslived his own life independently of her. Often this separatebeing gave her pain, but at the same time she wanted to laughwith a strange new joy.

　　All the people she loved were with her, and all were so good toher, so attentively caring for her, so entirely pleasant waseverything presented to her, that if she had not known and feltthat it must all soon be over, she could not have wished for abetter and pleasanter life. The only thing that spoiled thecharm of this manner of life was that her husband was not here asshe loved him to be, and as he was in the country.

　　She liked his serene, friendly, and hospitable manner in thecountry. In the town he seemed continually uneasy and on hisguard, as though he were afraid someone would be rude to him, andstill more to her. At home in the country, knowing himselfdistinctly to be in his right place, he was never in haste to beoff elsewhere. He was never unoccupied. Here in town he was ina continual hurry, as though afraid of missing something, and yethe had nothing to do. And she felt sorry for him. To others,she knew, he did not appear an object of pity. On the contrary,when Kitty looked at him in society, as one sometimes looks atthose one loves, trying to see him as if he were a stranger, soas to catch the impression he must make on others, she saw with apanic even of jealous fear that he was far indeed from being apitiable figure, that he was very attractive with his finebreeding, his rather old-fashioned, reserved courtesy with women,his powerful figure, and striking, as she thought, and expressiveface. But she saw him not from without, but from within; she sawthat here he was not himself; that was the only way she coulddefine his condition to herself. Sometimes she inwardlyreproached him for his inability to live in the town; sometimesshe recognized that it was really hard for him to order his lifehere so that he could be satisfied with.

　　What had he to do, indeed? He did not care for cards; he did notgo to a club. Spending the time with jovial gentlemen ofOblonsky's type--she knew now what that meant...it meant drinkingand going somewhere after drinking. She could not think withouthorror of where men went on such occasions. Was he to go intosociety? But she knew he could only find satisfaction in that ifhe took pleasure in the society of young women, and that shecould not wish for. Should he stay at home with her, her motherand her sisters? But much as she liked and enjoyed theirconversations forever on the same subjects--"Aline-Nadine," asthe old prince called the sisters' talks--she knew it must borehim. What was there left for him to do? To go on writing at hisbook he had indeed attempted, and at first he used to go to thelibrary and make extracts and look up references for his book.But, as he told her, the more he did nothing, the less time hehad to do anything. And besides, he complained that he hadtalked too much about his book here, and that consequently allhis ideas about it were muddled and had lost their interest forhim.

　　One advantage in this town life was that quarrels hardly everhappened between them here in town. Whether it was that theirconditions were different, or that they had both become morecareful and sensible in that respect, they had no quarrels inMoscow from jealousy, which they had so dreaded when they movedfrom the country.

　　One event, an event of great importance to both from that pointof view, did indeed happen--that was Kitty's meeting withVronsky.

　　The old Princess Marya Borissovna, Kitty's godmother, who hadalways been very fond of her, had insisted on seeing her. Kitty,though she did not go into society at all on account of hercondition, went with her father to see the venerable old lady,and there met Vronsky.

　　The only thing Kitty could reproach herself for at this meetingwas that at the instant when she recognized in his civilian dressthe features once so familiar to her, her breath failed her, theblood rushed to her heart, and a vivid blush--she felt it--overspread her face. But this lasted only a few seconds. Beforeher father, who purposely began talking in a loud voice toVronsky, had finished, she was perfectly ready to look atVronsky, to speak to him, if necessary, exactly as she spoke toPrincess Marya Borissovna, and more than that, to do so in such away that everything to the faintest intonation and smile wouldhave been approved by her husband, whose unseen presence sheseemed to feel about her at that instant.

　　She said a few words to him, even smiled serenely at his jokeabout the elections, which he called "our parliament." (She hadto smile to show she saw the joke.) But she turned awayimmediately to Princess Marya Borissovna, and did not once glanceat him till he got up to go; then she looked at him, butevidently only because it would be uncivil not to look at a manwhen he is saying good-bye.

　　She was grateful to her father for saying nothing to her abouttheir meeting Vronsky, but she saw by his special warmth to herafter the visit during their usual walk that he was pleased withher. She was pleased with herself. She had not expected shewould have had the power, while keeping somewhere in the bottomof her heart all the memories of her old feeling for Vronsky, notonly to seem but to be perfectly indifferent and composed withhim.

　　Levin flushed a great deal more than she when she told him shehad met Vronsky at Princess Marya Borissovna's. It was very hardfor her to tell him this, but still harder to go on speaking ofthe details of the meeting, as he did not question her, butsimply gazed at her with a frown.

　　"I am very sorry you weren't there," she said. "Not that youweren't in the room...I couldn't have been so natural in yourpresence...I am blushing now much more, much, much more," shesaid, blushing till the tears came into her eyes. "But that youcouldn't see through a crack."

　　The truthful eyes told Levin that she was satisfied with herself,and in spite of her blushing he was quickly reassured and beganquestioning her, which was all she wanted. When he had heardeverything, even to the detail that for the first second shecould not help flushing, but that afterwards she was just asdirect and as much at her ease as with any chance acquaintance,Levin was quite happy again and said he was glad of it, and wouldnot now behave as stupidly as he had done at the election, butwould try the first time he met Vronsky to be as friendly aspossible.

　　"It's so wretched to feel that there's a man almost an enemy whomit's painful to meet," said Levin. "I'm very, very glad."