future bride, and been looked at. The match-making aunt had
ascertained and communicated their mutual impression. That
impression had been favorable. Afterwards, on a day fixed
beforehand, the expected offer was made to her parents, and
accepted. All had passed very simply and easily. So it seemed,
at least, to the princess. But over her own daughters she had
felt how far from simple and easy is the business, apparently so
commonplace, of marrying off one's daughters. The panics that
had been lived through, the thoughts that had been brooded over,
the money that had been wasted, and the disputes with her husband
over marrying the two elder girls, Darya and Natalia! Now, since
the youngest had 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