Anna Karenina — Chapter 68 in French
By Leo Tolstoy
Avant la fin de la cure, le prince Stcherbatzkï, qui, après son séjour à Karlsbad, était allé à Baden et à Kisingen, chez des compatriotes, pour s’imprégner de l’humeur russe, revint chez les siens. Just before their season at the Spa was over, Prince Shcherbatsky rejoined them. He had been to Carlsbad, to Baden, and to Kissingen, with Russian friends,—"to get a breath of Russian air," as he expressed it.
Les opinions du prince et de la princesse sur la vie à l’étranger, étaient diamétralement opposées. The prince and princess had conflicting ideas in regard to living abroad. La princesse trouvait tout parfait, et malgré sa haute situation dans la société russe, elle désirait, à l’étranger, ressembler à une dame européenne, ce qui n’allait pas, avec son extérieur franchement russe ; c’est pourquoi elle devait se composer une attitude, ce qui la gênait un peu. The princess thought that everything was lovely; and, notwithstanding her assured position in Russian society, while she was abroad she put on the airs of a European lady which she was not, for she was in every way a genuine Russian baruinya. Le prince, au contraire, trouvait tout mauvais à l’étranger ; il n’aimait pas la vie européenne, portait des costumes russes et affectait de se montrer moins européen qu’il ne l’était en réalité. The prince, on the other hand, considered everything abroad detestable, and the European life unendurable; and he even exaggerated his Russian characteristics, and tried to be less of a European than he really was.
Le prince, amaigri, les joues pendantes, revenait tout joyeux, et sa bonne humeur s’accrut quand il trouva Kitty tout à fait remise. He came back emaciated and with drooping sacks under his eyes, but in the happiest spirits; and his happy frame of mind was still further enhanced when he found that Kitty was on the road to health.
La princesse lui apprit l’amitié de Kitty avec madame Stahl et Varenka, et lui parla du changement qui s’accomplissait en elle. The accounts that he heard of Kitty's intimacy with Madame Stahl and Varenka, and the princess's description of the moral transformation through which his daughter was passing, rather vexed the prince, awaking in him that feeling of jealousy which he always had in regard to everything that might draw Kitty away from under his influence. Il craignait qu'elle ne s'élevât à des hauteurs inaccessibles pour lui. He was afraid that she might ascend to regions unattainable to him. Mais ces nouvelles désagréables étaient noyées dans sa joie et sa gaîté habituelles qui s’avivaient encore aux eaux de Karlsbad. But these disagreeable presentiments were swallowed up in the sea of gayety and good humor which he always carried with him, and which his sojourn at Carlsbad had increased.