Part Six: Chapter 2

by Leo Tolstoy

　　On the terrace were assembled all the ladies of the party. Theyalways liked sitting there after dinner, and that day they hadwork to do there too. Besides the sewing and knitting ofbaby clothes, with which all of them were busy, that afternoonjam was being made on the terrace by a method new to AgafeaMihalovna, without the addition of water. Kitty had introducedthis new method, which had been in use in her home. AgafeaMihalovna, to whom the task of jam-making had always beenintrusted, considering that what had been done in the Levinhousehold could not be amiss, had nevertheless put water with thestrawberries, maintaining that the jam could not be made withoutit. She had been caught in the act, and was now making jambefore everyone, and it was to be proved to her conclusively thatjam could be very well made without water.

　　Agafea Mihalovna, her face heated and angry, her hair untidy, andher thin arms bare to the elbows, was turning the preserving-panover the charcoal stove, looking darkly at the raspberries anddevoutly hoping they would stick and not cook properly. Theprincess, conscious that Agafea Mihalovna's wrath must be chieflydirected against her, as the person responsible for the raspberryjam-making, tried to appear to be absorbed in other things andnot interested in the jam, talked of other matters, but caststealthy glances in the direction of the stove.

　　"I always buy my maids' dresses myself, of some cheap material,"the princess said, continuing the previous conversation. "Isn'tit time to skim it, my dear?" she added, addressing AgafeaMihalovna. "There's not the slightest need for you to do it, andit's hot for you," she said, stopping Kitty.

　　"I'll do it," said Dolly, and getting up, she carefully passedthe spoon over the frothing sugar, and from time to time shookoff the clinging jam from the spoon by knocking it on a platethat was covered with yellow-red scum and blood-colored syrup."How they'll enjoy this at tea-time!" she thought of herchildren, remembering how she herself as a child had wondered howit was the grown-up people did not eat what was best of all--thescum of the jam.

　　"Stiva says it's much better to give money." Dolly took upmeanwhile the weighty subject under discussion, what presentsshould be made to servants. "But..."

　　"Money's out of the question!" the princess and Kitty exclaimedwith one voice. "They appreciate a present..."

　　"Well, last year, for instance, I bought our Matrona Semyenovna,not a poplin, but something of that sort," said the princess.

　　"I remember she was wearing it on your nameday."

　　"A charming pattern--so simple and refined,--I should have likedit myself, if she hadn't had it. Something like Varenka's. Sopretty and inexpensive."

　　"Well, now I think it's done," said Dolly, dropping the syrupfrom the spoon.

　　"When it sets as it drops, it's ready. Cook it a little longer,Agafea Mihalovna."

　　"The flies!" said Agafea Mihalovna angrily. "It'll be just thesame," she added.

　　"Ah! how sweet it is! don't frighten it!" Kitty said suddenly,looking at a sparrow that had settled on the step and was peckingat the center of a raspberry.

　　"Yes, but you keep a little further from the stove," said hermother.

　　"A propos de Varenka," said Kitty, speaking in French, as theyhad been doing all the while, so that Agafea Mihalovna should notunderstand them, "you know, mamma, I somehow expect things to besettled today. You know what I mean. How splendid it would be!"

　　"But what a famous matchmaker she is!" said Dolly. "Howcarefully and cleverly she throws them together!..."

　　"No; tell me, mamma, what do you think?"

　　"Why, what is one to think? He" (he meant Sergey Ivanovitch)"might at any time have been a match for anyone in Russia; now,of course, he's not quite a young man, still I know ever so manygirls would be glad to marry him even now.... She's a very nicegirl, but he might..."

　　"Oh, no, mamma, do understand why, for him and for her too,nothing better could be imagined. In the first place, she'scharming!" said Kitty, crooking one of her fingers.

　　"He thinks her very attractive, that's certain," assented Dolly.

　　"Then he occupies such a position in society that he has no needto look for either fortune or position in his wife. All he needsis a good, sweet wife--a restful one."

　　"Well, with her he would certainly be restful," Dolly assented.

　　"Thirdly, that she should love him. And so it is...that is,it would be so splendid!...I look forward to seeing themcoming out of the forest--and everything settled. I shall see atonce by their eyes. I should be so delighted! What do youthink, Dolly?"

　　"But don't excite yourself. It's not at all the thing for you tobe excited," said her mother.

　　"Oh, I'm not excited, mamma. I fancy he will make her an offertoday."

　　"Ah, that's so strange, how and when a man makes an offer!...There is a sort of barrier, and all at once it's broken down,"said Dolly, smiling pensively and recalling her past with StepanArkadyevitch.

　　"Mamma, how did papa make you an offer?" Kitty asked suddenly.

　　"There was nothing out of the way, it was very simple," answeredthe princess, but her face beamed all over at the recollection.

　　"Oh, but how was it? You loved him, anyway, before you wereallowed to speak?"

　　Kitty felt a peculiar pleasure in being able now to talk to hermother on equal terms about those questions of such paramountinterest in a woman's life.

　　"Of course I did; he had come to stay with us in the country."

　　"But how was it settled between you, mamma?"

　　"You imagine, I dare say, that you invented something quite new?It's always just the same: it was settled by the eyes, bysmiles..."

　　"How nicely you said that, mamma! It's just by the eyes, bysmiles that it's done," Dolly assented.

　　"But what words did he say?"

　　"What did Kostya say to you?"

　　"He wrote it in chalk. It was wonderful.... How long ago itseems!" she said.

　　And the three women all fell to musing on the same thing. Kittywas the first to break the silence. She remembered all that lastwinter before her marriage, and her passion for Vronsky.

　　"There's one thing ...that old love affair of Varenka's," shesaid, a natural chain of ideas bringing her to this point. "Ishould have liked to say something to Sergey Ivanovitch, toprepare him. They're all--all men, I mean," she added, "awfullyjealous over our past."

　　"Not all," said Dolly. "You judge by your own husband. It makeshim miserable even now to remember Vronsky. Eh? that's true,isn't it?"

　　"Yes," Kitty answered, a pensive smile in her eyes.

　　"But I really don't know," the mother put in in defense of hermotherly care of her daughter, "what there was in your past thatcould worry him? That Vronsky paid you attentions--that happensto every girl."

　　"Oh, yes, but we didn't mean that," Kitty said, flushing alittle.

　　"No, let me speak," her mother went on, "why, you yourself wouldnot let me have a talk to Vronsky. Don't you remember?"

　　"Oh, mamma!" said Kitty, with an expression of suffering.

　　"There's no keeping you young people in check nowadays.... Yourfriendship could not have gone beyond what was suitable. Ishould myself have called upon him to explain himself. But, mydarling, it's not right for you to be agitated. Please rememberthat, and calm yourself."

　　"I'm perfectly calm, maman."

　　"How happy it was for Kitty that Anna came then," said Dolly,"and how unhappy for her. It turned out quite the opposite," shesaid, struck by her own ideas. "Then Anna was so happy, andKitty thought herself unhappy. Now it is just the opposite. Ioften think of her."

　　"A nice person to think about! Horrid, repulsive woman--noheart," said her mother, who could not forget that Kitty hadmarried not Vronsky, but Levin.

　　"What do you want to talk of it for?" Kitty said with annoyance."I never think about it, and I don't want to think of it....And I don't want to think of it," she said, catching the sound ofher husband's well-known step on the steps of the terrace.

　　"What's that you don't want to think about?" inquired Levin,coming onto the terrace.

　　But no one answered him, and he did not repeat the question.

　　"I'm sorry I've broken in on your feminine parliament," he said,looking round on every one discontentedly, and perceiving thatthey had been talking of something which they would not talkabout before him.

　　For a second he felt that he was sharing the feeling of AgafeaMihalovna, vexation at their making jam without water, andaltogether at the outside Shtcherbatsky element. He smiled,however, and went up to Kitty.

　　"Well, how are you?" he asked her, looking at her with theexpression with which everyone looked at her now.

　　"Oh, very well," said Kitty, smiling, "and how have things gonewith you?"

　　"The wagons held three times as much as the old carts did. Well,are we going for the children? I've ordered the horses to be putin."

　　"What! you want to take Kitty in the wagonette?" her mother saidreproachfully.

　　"Yes, at a walking pace, princess."

　　Levin never called the princess "maman" as men often do calltheir mothers-in-law, and the princess disliked his not doing so.But though he liked and respected the princess, Levin could notcall her so without a sense of profaning his feeling for his deadmother.

　　"Come with us, maman," said Kitty.

　　"I don't like to see such imprudence."

　　"Well, I'll walk then, I'm so well." Kitty got up and went to herhusband and took his hand.

　　"You may be well, but everything in moderation," said theprincess.

　　"Well, Agafea Mihalovna, is the jam done?" said Levin, smiling toAgafea Mihalovna, and trying to cheer her up. "Is it all rightin the new way?"

　　"I suppose it's all right. For our notions it's boiled toolong."

　　"It'll be all the better, Agafea Mihalovna, it won't mildew, eventhough our ice has begun to thaw already, so that we've no coolcellar to store it," said Kitty, at once divining her husband'smotive, and addressing the old housekeeper with the same feeling;"but your pickle's so good, that mamma says she never tasted anylike it," she added, smiling, and putting her kerchief straight.

　　Agafea Mihalovna looked angrily at Kitty.

　　"You needn't try to console me, mistress. I need only to look atyou with him, and I feel happy," she said, and something in therough familiarity of that with him touched Kitty

　　"Come along with us to look for mushrooms, you will show us thenest places." Agafea Mihalovna smiled and shook her head, asthough to say: "I should like to be angry with you too, but Ican't."

　　"Do it, please, by my receipt," said the princess; "put somepaper over the jam, and moisten it with a little rum, and withouteven ice, it will never go mildewy."