It was a wet day; it had been raining all the morning, and the

invalids, with their parasols, had flocked into the arcades.

Kitty was walking there with her mother and the Moscow colonel,

smart and jaunty in his European coat, bought ready-made at

Frankfort. They were walking on one side of the arcade, trying

to avoid Levin, who was walking on the other side. Varenka, in

her dark dress, in a black hat with a turn-down brim, was walking

up and down the whole length of the arcade with a blind

Frenchwoman, and, every time she met Kitty, they exchanged

friendly glances.

"Mamma, couldn't I speak to her?" said Kitty, watching her

unknown friend, and noticing that she was going up to the spring,

and that they might come there together.

"Oh, if you want to so much, I'll find out about her first and

make her acquaintance myself," answered her mother. "What do you

see in her out of the way? A companion, she must be. If you

like, I'll make acquaintance with Madame Stahl; I used to know

her _belle-soeur_," added the princess, lifting her head haughtily.

Kitty knew that the princess was offended that Madame Stahl had

seemed to avoid making her acquaintance. Kitty did not insist.

"How wonderfully sweet she is!" she said, gazing at Varenka just

as she handed a glass to the Frenchwoman. "Look how natural and

sweet it all is."

"It's so funny to see your _engouements_," said the princess.

"No, we'd better go back," she added, noticing Levin coming towards

them with his companion and a German doctor, to whom he was

talking very noisily and angrily.

They turned to go back, when suddenly they heard, not noisy talk,

but shouting. Levin, stopping short, was shouting at the doctor,

and the doctor, too, was excited. A crowd gathered about them.

The princess and Kitty beat a hasty retreat, while the colonel

joined the crowd to find out what was the matter.

A few minutes later the colonel overtook them.

"What was it?" inquired the princess.

"Scandalous and disgraceful!" answered the colonel. "The one

thing to be dreaded is meeting Russians abroad. That tall

gentleman was abusing the doctor, flinging all sorts of insults

at him because he wasn't treating him quite as he liked, and he

began waving his stick at him. It's simply a scandal!"

"Oh, how unpleasant!" said the princess. "Well, and how did it

end?"

"Luckily at that point that...the one in the mushroom hat...

intervened. A Russian lady, I think she is," said the colonel.




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