Anna Karenina — Chapter 16 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Vronskï n’avait jamais connu la vie de famille. Vronsky had never known anything of family life. Sa mère, dans sa jeunesse, était une mondaine brillante qui avait eu, pendant son mariage et surtout après, beaucoup d’aventures que personne n’ignorait. His mother, in her youth, had been a very brilliant society woman, who, in her husband's lifetime and after his death, had engaged in many love-affairs that had made talk. Il ne se rappelait pas son père ; il avait été élevé dans le corps des pages. Vronsky scarcely remembered his father, and he had been educated in the School of Pages.
Sorti de l’école très jeune avec le grade d’officier, il se trouva aussitôt dans le cercle des officiers riches de Pétersbourg. Graduating very young and with brilliancy as an officer, he immediately began to follow the course of wealthy military men of Petersburg. Il fréquentait parfois le monde, mais ses intérêts de cœur ne l’y attiraient pas. Though he occasionally went into general society, all his love-affairs were with a different class.
Quand il vint à Moscou, après la vie luxueuse et débauchée de Pétersbourg, il éprouva pour la première fois le charme de la société d’une jeune fille du monde gracieuse et éprise de lui. At Moscow, after the luxurious, dissipated life of Petersburg, he for the first time felt the charm of familiar intercourse with a lovely, innocent society girl, who was evidently in love with him. Il ne lui vint pas en tête qu’il pouvait y avoir quelque chose de mal dans ses relations avec Kitty. It never occurred to him that there might be anything wrong in his relations with Kitty. Il fréquentait sa famille, il lui parlait comme on parle ordinairement dans le monde, de banalités quelconques mais auxquelles, sans y penser, il attachait un sens particulier pour elle, bien qu’il ne lui dît rien qu’il ne put dire devant tout le monde, il la sentait de plus en plus attachée à lui, et à mesure qu’il le constatait, il en éprouvait plus de plaisir et ses sentiments pour elle devenaient plus tendres. At balls he preferred to dance with her, he called on her, talked with her as people generally talk in society: all sorts of trifles, but trifles to which he involuntarily attributed a different meaning when spoken to her. Although he never said anything to her which he would not have said in the hearing of others, he was conscious that she kept growing more and more dependent on him; and, the more he felt this consciousness, the pleasanter it was to him, and his feeling toward her grew warmer and warmer. Il ne savait pas que sa façon d’agir envers Kitty avait un nom défini, que cela s’appelle séduire une jeune fille sans avoir l’intention de l’épouser, et que cette séduction malhonnête est fort usitée des jeunes gens qui, comme lui, cherchent à briller. He did not know that his behavior toward Kitty had a definite name, that this way of leading on young girls without any intention of marriage is one of the most dishonorable tricks practised among the members of the brilliant circles of society in which he moved. Il lui semblait avoir le premier découvert ce plaisir, et il jouissait de sa découverte. He simply imagined that he had discovered a new pleasure, and he enjoyed his discovery.
S’il avait pu entendre la conversation du prince et de la princesse ce soir-là, s’il avait pu se mettre à la place de la famille et comprendre que Kitty serait malheureuse si elle ne l’épousait pas, il eût été très étonné et n’y aurait pu croire. Could he have heard the conversation between Kitty's parents that evening, could he have taken the family point of view and realized that Kitty would be made unhappy if he did not propose to her, he would have been amazed and would not have believed it. Il ne s’imaginait pas que ce qui lui causait un si vif plaisir à lui-même pouvait avoir des conséquences fâcheuses en général, et que la jeune fille risquait d’en être affectée. He would not have believed that what gave him and her such a great delight could be wrong, still less that it brought any obligation to marry.