Part 2 - Chapter 32 - Page 2

daughter and the colonel.

Varenka seemed quite unaffected by there being persons present
she did not know, and she went directly to the piano. She could
not accompany herself, but she could sing music at sight very
well. Kitty, who played well, accompanied her.

"You have an extraordinary talent," the princess said to her
after Varenka had sung the first song extremely well.

Marya Yevgenyevna and her daughter expressed their thanks and
admiration.

"Look," said the colonel, looking out of the window, "what an
audience has collected to listen to you." There actually was
quite a considerable crowd under the windows.

"I am very glad it gives you pleasure," Varenka answered simply.

Kitty looked with pride at her friend. She was enchanted by her
talent, and her voice and her face, but most of all by her
manner, by the way Varenka obviously thought nothing of her
singing and was quite unmoved by their praises. She seemed only
to be asking: "Am I to sing again, or is that enough?"

"If it had been I," thought Kitty, "how proud I should have been!
How delighted I should have been to see that crowd under the
windows! But she's utterly unmoved by it. Her only motive is to
avoid refusing and to please mamma. What is there in her? What
is it gives her the power to look down on everything, to be calm
independently of everything? How I should like to know it and to
learn it of her!" thought Kitty, gazing into her serene face.
The princess asked Varenka to sing again, and Varenka sang
another song, also smoothly, distinctly, and well, standing erect
at the piano and beating time on it with her thin, dark-skinned
hand.

The next song in the book was an Italian one. Kitty played the
opening bars, and looked round at Varenka.

"Let's skip that," said Varenka, flushing a little. Kitty let
her eyes rest on Varenka's face, with a look of dismay and
inquiry.

"Very well, the next one," she said hurriedly, turning over the
pages, and at once feeling that there was something connected
with the song.

"No," answered Varenka with a smile, laying her hand on the
music, "no, let's have that one." And she sang it just as
quietly, as coolly, and as well as the others.

When she had finished, they all thanked her again, and went off
to tea. Kitty and Varenka went out into the little garden that
adjoined the house.

"Am I right, that you have some reminiscences connected with
that song?" said Kitty. "Don't tell me," she added hastily,
"only say if I'm right."

"No, why not? I'll tell you simply," said Varenka, and, without
waiting for a reply, she went on: "Yes, it brings up memories,
once painful ones. I cared for someone once, and I used to