Page 98 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

come out, she was going through the same terrors, the
same doubts, and still more violent quarrels with her
husband than she had over the elder girls. The old prince,
like all fathers indeed, was exceedingly punctilious on the

score of the honor and reputation of his daughters. He was
irrationally jealous over his daughters, especially over
Kitty, who was his favorite. At every turn he had scenes
with the princess for compromising her daughter. The
princess had grown accustomed to this already with her
other daughters, but now she felt that there was more
ground for the prince’s touchiness. She saw that of late
years much was changed in the manners of society, that a
mother’s duties had become still more difficult. She saw
that girls of Kitty’s age formed some sort of clubs, went to
some sort of lectures, mixed freely in men’s society; drove
about the streets alone, many of them did not curtsey, and,
what was the most important thing, all the girls were
firmly convinced that to choose their husbands was their
own affair, and not their parents’. ‘Marriages aren’t made
nowadays as they used to be,’ was thought and said by all
these young girls, and even by their elders. But how
marriages were made now, the princess could not learn
from any one. The French fashion—of the parents
arranging their children’s future—was not accepted; it was

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