Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 09.djvu/213

Rh voice Dolly and the prince understood that she was talking of Vrónski. "I cannot comprehend how it is there are no laws against such base, ignoble people!"

"I wish I did not have to hear this!" the prince said, gloomily, rising from his seat, as though on the point of leaving, but stopping at the door. "There are laws, my dear, and since you have provoked me, I will tell you who is to blame for the whole thing it is you, you alone. There are laws and always have been against such fine fellows! Yes, madam, if that which never ought to have been had never happened, I, an old man, would havecalled out that fop. But now, go ahead and cure her, and invite all those charlatans!"

Obviously there was very much yet that the prince to say, but the moment the princess heard his tone, she immediately, as always in serious cases, became humble and repentant.

"Alexandre, Alexandre," she whispered, moving up, and bursting out into tears.

The moment she began to weep, the prince, too, grew quiet. He walked over to her.

"That will do, that will do! It is hard for you, too, I know! What is to be done? There is no great misfortune. God is merciful—be thankful—" he said, himself not knowing what he was saying, and responding to the princess's wet kiss, which he felt on his hand. And the prince left the room.

Even when Kitty had left the room in tears, Dolly, with all her maternal family habit, saw at once that here was some work for a woman to do, and she immediately got ready for it. She took off her bonnet and, morally rolling up her sleeves, preparing herself for action. During her mother's attack on her father, she tried to hold her mother back, in so far as her filial respect permitted her to do so. During the prince's outburst she kept quiet; she was ashamed for her mother and felt a tenderness for her