Of these people the one that attracted her most was a Russian

girl who had come to the watering-place with an invalid Russian

lady, Madame Stahl, as everyone called her. Madame Stahl

belonged to the highest society, but she was so ill that she

could not walk, and only on exceptionally fine days made her

appearance at the springs in an invalid carriage. But it was not

so much from ill-health as from pride--so Princess

Shtcherbatskaya interpreted it--that Madame Stahl had not made

the acquaintance of anyone among the Russians there. The Russian

girl looked after Madame Stahl, and besides that, she was, as

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Kitty observed, on friendly terms with all the invalids who were

seriously ill, and there were many of them at the springs, and

looked after them in the most natural way. This Russian girl was

not, as Kitty gathered, related to Madame Stahl, nor was she a

paid attendant. Madame Stahl called her Varenka, and other

people called her "Mademoiselle Varenka." Apart from the

interest Kitty took in this girl's relations with Madame Stahl

and with other unknown persons, Kitty, as often happened, felt an

inexplicable attraction to Mademoiselle Varenka, and was aware

when their eyes met that she too liked her.

Of Mademoiselle Varenka one would not say that she had passed her

first youth, but she was, as it were, a creature without youth;

she might have been taken for nineteen or for thirty. If her

features were criticized separately, she was handsome rather than

plain, in spite of the sickly hue of her face. She would have

been a good figure, too, if it had not been for her extreme

thinness and the size of her head, which was too large for her

medium height. But she was not likely to be attractive to men.

She was like a fine flower, already past its bloom and without

fragrance, though the petals were still unwithered. Moreover,

she would have been unattractive to men also from the lack of

just what Kitty had too much of--of the suppressed fire of

vitality, and the consciousness of her own attractiveness.

She always seemed absorbed in work about which there could be no

doubt, and so it seemed she could not take interest in anything

outside it. It was just this contrast with her own position that

was for Kitty the great attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka.

Kitty felt that in her, in her manner of life, she would find an

example of what she was now so painfully seeking: interest in

life, a dignity in life--apart from the worldly relations of

girls with men, which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now

as a shameful hawking about of goods in search of a purchaser.

The more attentively Kitty watched her unknown friend, the more

convinced she was this girl was the perfect creature she fancied

her, and the more eagerly she wished to make her acquaintance.




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