Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/72



Princess Kitty Shcherbatskaya was eighteen years old. She was making her first appearance in society this winter, and her triumphs had been more brilliant than her elder sisters, more than even her mother, had expected. Not only were almost all the young men who danced at balls in Moscow in love with Kitty, but, moreover, there were two who, during this first winter, were serious aspirants to her hand,—Levin, and, soon after his departure, Count Vronsky.

Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent calls and his unconcealed love for Kitty, were the first subjects that gave cause for serious conversation between her father and mother in regard to her future and for disputes between the prince and princess. The prince was on Levin's side, and declared that he could not desire a better match for Kitty. But the princess, with the skill which women have for avoiding a question, insisted that Kitty was too young, that Levin did not seem to be serious in his attentions, and that she did not show great partiality for him; but she did not express what was in the bottom of her heart,—that she was ambitious for a more brilliant marriage, that Levin did not appeal to her sympathies, and that she did not understand him. And when Levin took a sudden leave she was glad and said; with an air of triumph, to her husband:—

"You see, I was right."

When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she was still more glad, being confirmed in her opinion that Kitty ought to make, not merely a good, but a brilliant match.

For the princess there was no comparison between Vronsky and Levin as suitors. The mother disliked Levin and his strange and harsh judgments, his awkwardness in society, which she attributed to his pride and what she called his savage life in the country, occupied with his cattle and peasants. Nor did she like it at all that Levin, though he was in love with her daughter, and