Page 502 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Kitty saw that her father had meant to make fun of
Varenka, but that he could not do it because he liked her.
‘Come, so we shall see all your friends,’ he went on,
‘even Madame Stahl, if she deigns to recognize me.’

‘Why, did you know her, papa?’ Kitty asked
apprehensively, catching the gleam of irony that kindled in
the prince’s eyes at the mention of Madame Stahl.
‘I used to know her husband, and her too a little,
before she’d joined the Pietists.’
‘What is a Pietist, papa?’ asked Kitty, dismayed to find
that what she prized so highly in Madame Stahl had a
name.
‘I don’t quite know myself. I only know that she thanks
God for everything, for every misfortune, and thanks God
too that her husband died. And that’s rather droll, as they
didn’t get on together.’
‘Who’s that? What a piteous face!’ he asked, noticing a
sick man of medium height sitting on a bench, wearing a
brown overcoat and white trousers that fell in strange folds
about his long, fleshless legs. This man lifted his straw hat,
showed his scanty curly hair and high forehead, painfully
reddened by the pressure of the hat.
‘That’s Petrov, an artist,’ answered Kitty, blushing.
‘And that’s his wife,’ she added, indicating Anna Pavlovna,

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