Kitty had another suitor, Count Vronsky, on whom she looked with the favour that she could not accord to Levin. He was rich, intelligent, of good birth, with a brilliant career before him in court and navy. He was charming, and in him the Princess Shcherbatsky saw an admirable match for her youngest daughter. Princess Kitty was now eighteen. She was the favourite child of her father. It was manifest to both parents that she was in love with Vronsky. Yet when at length Levin ventured on an actual declaration of his love, she was deeply agitated. Lifting her sincere glance to him, she said hastily, "This cannot be. Forgive me."
Anna Karenina arrived in the home of Stepan Arkadyevitch, where she was received with cordial kisses by Dolly, who remembered that Stepan's sister was not to blame, and that she was a grande dame of St. Petersburg, wife of one of the important personages of the city. She was delighted to think that at last she could open her mind and tell her troubles. And she was not disappointed, for in a lengthy and sympathetic colloquy Dolly's heart was touched with the sentiment of forgiveness.
Anna was one of the most beautiful and graceful of women. And she was as tactful as she was lovely. Before many hours she had successfully played the part of peacemaker, and thanked God in her heart that she had been able to effect complete reconciliation between Stepan and his wife. That same evening Anna went to a grand ball with Kitty and her mother, where the three were quickly saluted by Vronsky. It was a most brilliant affair. But next morning Anna telegraphed to her husband that she was leaving Moscow for home. It happened that Vronsky travelled by the same train, and thus the two were thrown together for the long journey.
V
Aleksei Alexandrovitch, though he affectionately met his wife, found but little time to spend with her. The next day several visitors came to dine with the Karenins. Every moment of Aleksei's life was fully occupied with his official duties, and he was forced to be strictly regular and punctual in his arrangements. He was an excellent man, and an intellectual one, delighting in art, poetry, and music, and loving to talk of Shakespeare, Raphael, and Beethoven.
Society in St. Petersburg is very united, and Anna Karenina had very friendly relations with the gay world of fashion, with its dinner parties and balls. She met Vronsky at several of these brilliant reunions. He, deeply impressed with her, notwithstanding his connection with Kitty, went everywhere that he was likely to meet her, and her joy at meeting him easily betrayed itself in her eyes and her smile. And he did not refrain from actually making love to Anna on the occasions when they were able to engage in tête-à-tête conversations. Nor was he positively repelled. Soon the acquaintance became more and more intimate. Meantime, Aleksei as usual would come home and, instead of seeking his wife's society, would bury himself in his library amongst his books. But suddenly the idea that his wife could form an attachment to another man filled him with terror. He resolved to remonstrate with her, but she received his expostulations with laughing and good-humoured mockery, which entirely frustrated his purpose. He dropped the subject; yet from that moment a new life began for the husband and wife. There was no outward sign of the change. Anna continued to meet Vronsky, and Aleksei felt himself powerless to intervene.
While Vronsky was thus entangling himself with Anna Karenina at St. Petersburg, the Shcherbatskys at Moscow were growing anxious about the health of Princess Kitty, their beautiful daughter who was so deeply in love with him. She was ill, and after a consultation of physicians it was decided that travelling abroad would be advisable. But the girl said to herself that her trouble was one that they could not fathom, that her supposed illness and the remedies she had to endure were nonsense. What did they amount to? Nothing more than the gathering up of the fragments of a broken vase to patch it up again. Her heart was broken, and could it be healed by pills and powders?
VI
Absorbed by his passion, Vronsky yet proceeded in his regular manner of life, sustaining as usual his social and military relations. He loved his regiment and was very popular in it. Naturally, he spoke not a syllable to anyone about his passion. He drank moderately, and not an indiscreet word escaped him. But his mother was not a little disturbed when she discovered that his infatuation for Madame Karenina had impelled him to refuse an excellent promotion which would have necessitated his removal from the metropolis. She feared that instead of being a flirtation of which she might not disapprove, this passion might develop into a Werther-like tragedy and lead her son to commit some imprudence.
Many fashionable young ladies who were jealous of Anna and were weary of hearing her praised, were malignantly pleased to hear rumours to her disparagement and to feel justified in alluding scornfully to her. Vronsky received a message from his mother in Moscow. She desired him to come to her. His elder brother, though not himself by any means a pattern of perfect propriety, strongly expressed his dissatisfaction, because he felt that the unpleasant rumours would be likely to cause displeasure in certain high quarters.