Anna Karenina - Part 2 - Page 120/124

The prince communicated his good humor to his own family and his

friends, and even to the German landlord in whose rooms the

Shtcherbatskys were staying.

On coming back with Kitty from the springs, the prince, who had

asked the colonel, and Marya Yevgenyevna, and Varenka all to come

and have coffee with them, gave orders for a table and chairs to

be taken into the garden under the chestnut tree, and lunch to be

laid there. The landlord and the servants, too, grew brisker

under the influence of his good spirits. They knew his

open-handedness; and half an hour later the invalid doctor from

Hamburg, who lived on the top floor, looked enviously out of the

window at the merry party of healthy Russians assembled under the

chestnut tree. In the trembling circles of shadow cast by the

leaves, at a table, covered with a white cloth, and set with

coffeepot, bread-and-butter, cheese, and cold game, sat the

princess in a high cap with lilac ribbons, distributing cups and

bread-and-butter. At the other end sat the prince, eating

heartily, and talking loudly and merrily. The prince had spread

out near him his purchases, carved boxes, and knick-knacks,

paper-knives of all sorts, of which he bought a heap at every

watering-place, and bestowed them upon everyone, including

Lieschen, the servant girl, and the landlord, with whom he jested

in his comically bad German, assuring him that it was not the

water had cured Kitty, but his splendid cookery, especially his

plum soup. The princess laughed at her husband for his Russian

ways, but she was more lively and good-humored than she had been

all the while she had been at the waters. The colonel smiled, as

he always did, at the prince's jokes, but as far as regards

Europe, of which he believed himself to be making a careful

study, he took the princess's side. The simple-hearted Marya

Yevgenyevna simply roared with laughter at everything absurd the

prince said, and his jokes made Varenka helpless with feeble but

infectious laughter, which was something Kitty had never seen

before.

Kitty was glad of all this, but she could not be light-hearted.

She could not solve the problem her father had unconsciously set

her by his goodhumored view of her friends, and of the life that

had so attracted her. To this doubt there was joined the change

in her relations with the Petrovs, which had been so

conspicuously and unpleasantly marked that morning. Everyone was

good humored, but Kitty could not feel good humored, and this

increased her distress. She felt a feeling such as she had known

in childhood, when she had been shut in her room as a punishment,

and had heard her sisters' merry laughter outside.