The young Princess Kitty Shtcherbatskaya was eighteen. It was

the first winter that she had been out in the world. Her success

in society had been greater than that of either of her elder

sisters, and greater even than her mother had anticipated. To

say nothing of the young men who danced at the Moscow balls being

almost all in love with Kitty, two serious suitors had already

this first winter made their appearance: Levin, and immediately

after his departure, Count Vronsky.

Levin's appearance at the beginning of the winter, his frequent

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visits, and evident love for Kitty, had led to the first serious

conversations between Kitty's parents as to her future, and to

disputes between them. The prince was on Levin's side; he said

he wished for nothing better for Kitty. The princess for her

part, going round the question in the manner peculiar to women,

maintained that Kitty was too young, that Levin had done nothing

to prove that he had serious intentions, that Kitty felt no great

attraction to him, and other side issues; but she did not state

the principal point, which was that she looked for a better match

for her daughter, and that Levin was not to her liking, and she

did not understand him. When Levin had abruptly departed, the

princess was delighted, and said to her husband triumphantly:

"You see I was right." When Vronsky appeared on the scene, she

was still more delighted, confirmed in her opinion that Kitty was

to make not simply a good, but a brilliant match.

In the mother's eyes there could be no comparison between Vronsky

and Levin. She disliked in Levin his strange and uncompromising

opinions and his shyness in society, founded, as she supposed, on

his pride and his queer sort of life, as she considered it,

absorbed in cattle and peasants. She did not very much like it

that he, who was in love with her daughter, had kept coming to

the house for six weeks, as though he were waiting for something,

inspecting, as though he were afraid he might be doing them too

great an honor by making an offer, and did not realize that a

man, who continually visits at a house where there is a young

unmarried girl, is bound to make his intentions clear. And

suddenly, without doing so, he disappeared. "It's as well he's

not attractive enough for Kitty to have fallen in love with him,"

thought the mother.

Vronsky satisfied all the mother's desires. Very wealthy,

clever, of aristocratic family, on the highroad to a brilliant

career in the army and at court, and a fascinating man. Nothing

better could be wished for.




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