Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/295

 CHAPTER XXX

in all places where human beings congregate, so in the little German village where the Shcherbatskys went to take the waters, there is formed a sort of social crystallization which puts every one in his exact and unchangeable place. Just as a drop of water exposed to the cold always and invariably takes a certain crystalline form, so each new individual coming to the Spa immediately finds himself fixed in the place peculiar to him.

"Fürst Schtscherbatzsky sammt Gemïhlin und Tochter,"—Prince Shcherbatsky, wife, and daughter,—both by the apartments that they occupied, and by their name and the acquaintances that they found, immediately crystallized into the exact place that was predestined to deceive them.

This year a genuine German Fürstin, or princess, was at the Spa, and in consequence the crystallization of society took place even more energetically than usual. The Russian princess felt called on to present her daughter to the German princess, and the ceremony took place two days after their arrival. Kitty, dressed in a very simple toilet, that is to say, a very elegant summer costume imported from Paris, made a low and graceful courtesy. The Fürstin said:—

"I hope that the roses will soon bloom again in this pretty little face."

And immediately the Shcherbatsky family found themselves in the fixed and definite walk in life from which it was impossible to descend. They made the acquaintance of the family of an English Lady, of a German Gräfin, and her son who had been wounded in the late war, of a scientific man from Sweden, and of a M. Canut and his sister.

But, for the most part, the Shcherbatskys spontaneously formed social relations among the people from Moscow, among them Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishchevaya and her daughter, whom Kitty did not like because she likewise was ill on account of a love-affair, and a Mos-