The conversation touched on table-turning and spirits,* and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism, started recounting the wonders she had seen.
‘Ah, Countess, do take me next time, please, I beg you! I have never ever seen anything unusual, although I have been looking everywhere,’ said Vronsky with a smile.
‘All right, next Saturday then,’ replied Countess Nordston. ‘But what about you, Konstantin Dmitrich, do you believe?’
‘Why are you asking me? You know what I will say.’
‘But I want to hear your opinion.’
‘My opinion’, replied Levin, ‘is only that this table-turning proves that the so-called educated class is in no way superior to the peasants. They believe in the evil eye, curses, and magic spells, while we …’
‘So you do not believe then?’
‘I cannot believe, Countess.’
‘But if I have seen it with my own eyes?’
‘Peasant women say they have seen house-spirits* with their own eyes too.’
‘So you think I am not telling the truth?’
And she started laughing mirthlessly.
‘No, Masha, Konstantin Dmitrich is just saying that he cannot believe,’ said Kitty, blushing on Levin’s behalf, and Levin understood this and, becoming ever more irritated, was about to respond, but Vronsky, with his candid, open smile, immediately came to the rescue of the conversation, which was threatening to become unpleasant.
‘You do not admit even the possibility?’ he asked. ‘After all, if we admit the existence of electricity, which we do not understand, why should there not be some new force, still unknown to us, which …’
‘When electricity was discovered,’ Levin interrupted quickly, ‘it was just a phenomenon which had been uncovered, and it was not known where it came from and what it could produce, and centuries went by before people thought of harnessing it. The spiritualists, on the other hand, started with tables writing to them and spirits visiting them, and it was only then that they started to say it was an unknown force.’
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always listened, clearly interested in what he was saying.
‘Yes, but the spiritualists say: we do not know what this force is right now, but it exists, and these are the conditions in which it operates. So let scientists work out what this force consists of. No, I do not see why this cannot be a new force, if it …’
‘Because with electricity,’ Levin interrupted again, ‘every time you rub resin against wool it produces a known phenomenon, but it doesn’t happen every time with this, so therefore it is not a natural phenomenon.’
No doubt feeling that the conversation was taking on too serious a tone for the drawing room, Vronsky did not object, but in an attempt to change the topic of conversation and, smiling jovially, he turned to the ladies.
‘Let’s try now, Countess,’ he began, but Levin wanted to finish saying what he thought.
‘I think’, he continued, ‘that this attempt on the part of the spiritualists to interpret their wonders as some kind of new force is most unfortunate. They talk explicitly about it being a spiritual force and want to submit it to material experiment.’
Everyone was waiting for him to finish, and he could feel that.
‘Well, I think you would be an excellent medium,’ said Countess Nordston. ‘There is something ecstatic about you.’
Levin opened his mouth and was about to say something, but he blushed and said nothing.
‘Please, Princess, do let us try the tables now,’ said Vronsky to Kitty. ‘Would you permit it, Princess?’ he asked her mother.
And Vronsky stood up, looking round for a little table.
Kitty got up to find a table, and her eyes met Levin’s as she walked past. She pitied him with all her heart, not least because she was pitying him for an unhappiness she herself had caused. ‘If you can forgive me, then do,’ her look said, ‘I’m so happy.’
‘I hate everyone, and you, and myself,’ his look replied, and he reached for his hat. But he was destined not to leave. They were just about to arrange themselves around the little table, and Levin was at the point of going, when the old Prince came in, and after greeting the ladies, he turned to Levin.
‘Ah!’ he began delightedly. ‘Have you been here long? I did not know you were here. I’m very glad to see you.’*
The old Prince vacillated between the informal and formal forms of address with Levin. He embraced Levin, and while he was talking to him did not notice Vronsky, who had got up and was patiently waiting for the Prince to speak to him.
Kitty felt that her father’s friendliness was bound to be painful for Levin after what had happened. She also saw how coldly her father eventually responded to Vronsky’s bow, and how Vronsky looked at her father with friendly bewilderment, trying and failing to understand how and why anyone could be unfavourably disposed towards him, and she blushed.
‘Prince, let Konstantin Dmitrich come and join us,’ said Countess Nordston. ‘We want to conduct an experiment.’
‘What experiment? Table-turning? Well, excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but in my opinion playing hide the ring* is a lot more fun,’ said the old Prince looking at Vronsky and guessing it was his idea. ‘There is a point to playing hide the ring too.’
Vronsky turned his firm gaze on to the Prince in surprise, and with a slight smile immediately started talking to Countess Nordston about the big ball taking place the following week.
‘I hope you will be there?’ he said, addressing Kitty.
As soon as the old Prince turned away from him, Levin left without being noticed, and the last impression he took away from that evening was that of Kitty’s smiling, happy face as she answered Vronsky’s question about the ball.
15
WHEN the evening was at an end, Kitty told her mother about her conversation with Levin, and despite all the pity she felt for Levin, she was thrilled by the thought that someone had proposed to her. She was in no doubt that she had acted correctly. But once in bed she found it difficult to fall asleep. One impression pursued her remorselessly. It was of Levin’s face, with furrowed brows, and kind eyes looking grimly and forlornly out from under them as he stood listening to her father and looking at her and Vronsky. And she began to feel so sorry for him that her eyes welled up with tears. But then she immediately thought about whom she had exchanged him for. She vividly recalled that strong, manly face, that dignified composure, and the kindness he radiated and imparted to everyone; she remembered the love for her shown by the one she loved, and she felt joy in her heart again and lay back on her pillow with a smile of happiness. ‘It’s a pity, it’s a pity, but what can be done? It’s not my fault,’ she kept telling herself; but an inner voice was telling her otherwise. Whether she felt remorse for having led Levin on, or for having refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was poisoned by doubts. ‘Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!’ she repeated to herself until she fell asleep.
Downstairs, meanwhile, in the Prince’s small study, the parents were having another of their frequently recurring quarrels over their favourite daughter.
‘What? I’ll tell you what!’ shouted the Prince, waving his arms about then immediately wrapping his squirrel-lined dressing-gown around him. ‘It’s that you have no pride, no dignity, that you are compromising and ruining our daughter with this abominable, idiotic matchmaking!’
‘Mercy, Prince, what in heaven’s name have I done?’ said the Princess, almost in tears.
Happy and contented after her conversation with her daughter, she had come to say goodnight to the Prince as usual, and although she had not intended to tell him about Levin’s proposal and Kitty’s rejection, she had hinted to her husband that she thought the matter with Vronsky quite settled, and that it would be concluded as soon as his mother arrived. And it was then, at these words, that the Prince had suddenly flared up and started shouting rude things.