In the little German watering-place to which the Shtcherbatskys

had betaken themselves, as in all places indeed where people are

gathered together, the usual process, as it were, of the

crystallization of society went on, assigning to each member of

that society a definite and unalterable place. Just as the

particle of water in frost, definitely and unalterably, takes the

special form of the crystal of snow, so each new person that

arrived at the springs was at once placed in his special place.

_Fürst_ Shtcherbatsky, _sammt Gemahlin und Tochter_, by the

apartments they took, and from their name and from the friends

they made, were immediately crystallized into a definite place

marked out for them.

There was visiting the watering-place that year a real German

Fürstin, in consequence of which the crystallizing process went

on more vigorously than ever. Princess Shtcherbatskaya wished,

above everything, to present her daughter to this German

princess, and the day after their arrival she duly performed this

rite. Kitty made a low and graceful curtsey in the _very simple_,

that is to say, very elegant frock that had been ordered her from

Paris. The German princess said, "I hope the roses will soon

come back to this pretty little face," and for the Shtcherbatskys

certain definite lines of existence were at once laid down from

which there was no departing. The Shtcherbatskys made the

acquaintance too of the family of an English Lady Somebody, and

of a German countess and her son, wounded in the last war, and of

a learned Swede, and of M. Canut and his sister. But yet

inevitably the Shtcherbatskys were thrown most into the society

of a Moscow lady, Marya Yevgenyevna Rtishtcheva and her daughter,

whom Kitty disliked, because she had fallen ill, like herself,

over a love affair, and a Moscow colonel, whom Kitty had known

from childhood, and always seen in uniform and epaulets, and who

now, with his little eyes and his open neck and flowered cravat,

was uncommonly ridiculous and tedious, because there was no

getting rid of him. When all this was so firmly established,

Kitty began to be very much bored, especially as the prince went

away to Carlsbad and she was left alone with her mother. She

took no interest in the people she knew, feeling that nothing

fresh would come of them. Her chief mental interest in the

watering-place consisted in watching and making theories about

the people she did not know. It was characteristic of Kitty that

she always imagined everything in people in the most favorable

light possible, especially so in those she did not know. And now

as she made surmises as to who people were, what were their

relations to one another, and what they were like, Kitty endowed

them with the most marvelous and noble characters, and found

confirmation of her idea in her observations.




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