She turned up the Galena Box and carried it with her when she went upstairs to dress. Looking into the looking-glass, she noticed with joy that it was one of her good days, and that she was in complete possession of all her forces-she needed this so for what lay before her: she was conscious of external composure and free grace in her movements.
At half past seven she had only just gone down into the drawing room, when the II/Footman/C(c)43 announced, in its grandiloquent way, “Konstantin Dmitrich Levin.” The princess was still in her room, and the prince had not come in. So it is to be, thought Kitty, and all the blood seemed to rush to her heart. She was horrified at her paleness, as she glanced into the looking-glass. At that moment she knew beyond doubt that he had come early on purpose to find her alone and to make her an offer. And only then for the first time the whole thing presented itself in a new, different aspect; only then she realized that the question did not affect her only-with whom she would be happy, and whom she loved-but that she would have that moment to wound a man whom she liked. And to wound him cruelly. She wished she could render herself invisible… though of course invisibility was impossible, and indeed experimentation into it was strictly forbidden.
Konstantin Dmitrich, dear fellow, loved her, was in love with her. But there was no help for it, so it must be, so it would have to be.
“My God! Shall I myself really have to say it to him? Can I tell him I don’t love him? That will be a lie. What am I to say to him? That I love someone else? No, that’s impossible. I’m going away, I’m going away.”
She had reached the door when she heard his step. “What have I to be afraid of? I have done nothing wrong. What is to be, will be! I’ll tell the truth. And with him one can’t be ill at ease. Here he is,” she said to herself, seeing his powerful, shy figure, and directly behind him that of his gangling Class III, both of them with their shining eyes fixed on her. She looked straight into his face, as though imploring him to spare her, and gave her hand.
“It’s not time yet; I think we’re too early,” he said glancing round the empty drawing room. When he saw that his expectations were realized, that there was nothing to prevent him from speaking, his face became gloomy. Socrates continued to stare directly at her, as if his sensors bore into her very soul-as always, she found Levin’s tall, strange-looking companion droid powerfully unsettling.
“Oh, no,” said Kitty, and sat down at the table.
“But this was just what I wanted, to find you alone,” he began, not sitting down, and not looking at her, so as not to lose courage.
“Mamma will be down directly. She was very much tired… Yesterday…”
She talked on, not knowing what her lips were uttering, and not taking her supplicating and caressing eyes off him. She wished she had brought the Galena Box down from her bedroom, and could feel its machine-lent courage already draining away.
He glanced at her, and then more pointedly at Socrates, who dutifully sent himself into Surcease.
“I told you I did not know whether I should be here long,” Levin began, “that it depended on you…”
She dropped her head lower and lower, not knowing herself what answer she should make to what was coming.
“That it depended on you,” he repeated. “I meant to say… I meant to say… I came for this… to be my wife!” he brought out, not knowing what he was saying. Levin felt that the most terrible thing was said; he stopped short and looked at her.
Kitty was breathing heavily, not looking at him. She was feeling ecstasy. Her soul was flooded with happiness. She had never anticipated that the utterance of love would produce such a powerful effect on her. But it lasted only an instant. She remembered Vronsky. She lifted her clear, truthful eyes, and seeing his desperate face, she answered hastily:
“That cannot be… forgive me.”
A moment ago, and how close she had been to him, of what importance in his life! And how aloof and remote from him she had become now!
“It was bound to be so,” he said, not looking at her. He flicked Socrates back on, and man and machine bowed together, preparing to retreat.
CHAPTER 12
BUT AT THAT VERY MOMENT the princess came in. There was a look of horror on her face when she saw them alone, and their disturbed faces. Levin bowed to her, and said nothing. Kitty did not speak nor lift her eyes. Thank God, she has refused him, thought the mother, and her face lighted up with the habitual smile with which she greeted her guests on Thursdays. She sat down and began questioning Levin about his life operating the groznium mine. He sat down again, waiting for other visitors to arrive, so he might retreat unnoticed.
Five minutes later there came in a friend of Kitty’s, married the preceding winter, Countess Nordston.
She was a thin, sallow, sickly, and nervous woman, with brilliant black eyes, and a short, green, cheap-looking Class III called Courtesana. Countess Nordston was fond of Kitty, and her affection for her showed itself, as the affection of married women for girls always does, in the desire to make a match for Kitty after her own ideal of married happiness; she wanted her to marry Vronsky. Levin she had often met at the Shcherbatskys’ early in the winter, and she had always disliked him.
“Well, Kitty,” she began. “Were you badly hurt in the attack upon the skate-maze?”
And she began talking to Kitty. Awkward as it was for Levin to withdraw now, it would still have been easier for him to perpetrate this awkwardness than to remain all the evening and see Kitty, who glanced at him now and then and avoided his eyes.
But as he was preparing to leave, he saw the officer who came in behind the countess.
“That must be Vronsky,” murmured Levin to Socrates, who nodded glumly. To be sure of it, Levin glanced at Kitty. She had already had time to look at Vronsky, and looked round at Levin. And simply from the look in her eyes, which grew unconsciously brighter, Levin knew that she loved that man, knew it as surely as if she had told him so in words. But what sort of a man was he? Now, whether for good or for ill, Levin could not choose but remain; he must find out what the man was like whom she loved.
Levin studied Vronsky. There are people who, on meeting a successful rival, no matter in what, are at once disposed to turn their backs on everything good in him, and to see only what is bad. There are people, on the other hand, who desire above all to find in that lucky rival the qualities by which he has outstripped them, and seek with a throbbing ache at heart only what is good. Levin belonged to the second class. But he had no difficulty in finding what was good and attractive in Vronsky. It was apparent at the first glance. Vronsky was a squarely built, dark man, not very tall, with a good-humored, handsome, and exceedingly calm and resolute face. His belt line was marked by two large smoker holsters; the electric crackle of a hot-whip laced around his upper thigh, a coiled cord of restrained power, waiting only for the flick of the master’s thumb to snap to life, whereupon it would pour upward into the air, crackling with deadly potential. Vronsky’s Class III, like all those awarded to border officers, was a simulative animal, in this case, one built in the shape of a powerful, silver-trimmed black wolf. Everything about Count Vronsky’s face and figure, from his short-cropped black hair and freshly shaven chin down to his loosely fitting, brand-new uniform, was simple and at the same time elegant. Making way for the lady who had come in, Vronsky went up to the princess and then to Kitty.