Anna Karenina
felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that from her point of view
Countess Lidia Ivanovna was right. Her suffering was the more poignant
that she had to bear it in solitude. She could not and would not share
it with Vronsky. She knew that to him, although he was the primary
cause of her distress, the question of her seeing her son would seem a
matter of very little consequence. She knew that he would never be
capable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that for his
cool tone at any allusion to it she would begin to hate him. And she
dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she hid from him
everything that related to her son. Spending the whole day at home she
considered ways of seeing her son, and had reached a decision to write
to her husband. She was just composing this letter when she was handed
the letter from Lidia Ivanovna. The countess’s silence had subdued and
depressed her, but the letter, all that she read between the lines in
it, so exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her
passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned against
other people and left off blaming herself.
“This coldness—this pretense of feeling!” she said to herself. “They
must needs insult me and torture the child, and I am to submit to it!
Not on any consideration! She is worse than I am. I don’t lie, anyway.”
And she decided on the spot that next day, Seryozha’s birthday, she
would go straight to her husband’s house, bribe or deceive the
servants, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous
deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child.
She went to a toy shop, bought toys and thought over a plan of action.
She would go early in the morning at eight o’clock, when Alexey
Alexandrovitch would be certain not to be up. She would have money in
her hand to give the hall-porter and the footman, so that they should
let her in, and not raising her veil, she would say that she had come
from Seryozha’s godfather to congratulate him, and that she had been
charged to leave the toys at his bedside. She had prepared everything
but the words she should say to her son. Often as she had dreamed of
it, she could never think of anything.
The next day, at eight o’clock in the morning, Anna got out of a hired
sledge and rang at the front entrance of her former home.
“Run and see what’s wanted. Some lady,” said Kapitonitch, who, not yet
dressed, in his overcoat and galoshes, had peeped out of the window and
seen a lady in a veil standing close up to the door. His assistant, a
lad Anna did not know, had no sooner opened the door to her than she
came in, and pulling a three-rouble note out of her muff put it
hurriedly into his hand.
“Seryozha—Sergey Alexeitch,” she said, and was going on. Scrutinizing
the note, the porter’s assistant stopped her at the second glass door.
“Whom do you want?” he asked.
She did not hear his words and made no answer.
Noticing the embarrassment of the unknown lady, Kapitonitch went out to
her, opened the second door for her, and asked her what she was pleased
to want.
“From Prince Skorodumov for Sergey Alexeitch,” she said.
“His honor’s not up yet,” said the porter, looking at her attentively.
Anna had not anticipated that the absolutely unchanged hall of the
house where she had lived for nine years would so greatly affect her.
Memories sweet and painful rose one after another in her heart, and for
a moment she forgot what she was here for.
“Would you kindly wait?” said Kapitonitch, taking off her fur cloak.
As he took off the cloak, Kapitonitch glanced at her face, recognized
her, and made her a low bow in silence.
“Please walk in, your excellency,” he said to her.
She tried to say something, but her voice refused to utter any sound;
with a guilty and imploring glance at the old man she went with light,
swift steps up the stairs. Bent double, and his galoshes catching in
the steps, Kapitonitch ran after her, trying to overtake her.
“The tutor’s there; maybe he’s not dressed. I’ll let him know.”
Anna still mounted the familiar staircase, not understanding what the
old man was saying.
“This way, to the left, if you please. Excuse its not being tidy. His
honor’s in the old parlor now,” the hall-porter said, panting. “Excuse
me, wait a little, your excellency; I’ll just see,” he said, and
overtaking her, he opened the high door and disappeared behind it. Anna
stood still waiting. “He’s only just awake,” said the hall-porter,
coming out. And at the very instant the porter said this, Anna caught
the sound of a childish yawn. From the sound of this yawn alone she
knew her son and seemed to see him living before her eyes.
“Let me in; go away!” she said, and went in through the high doorway.
On the right of the door stood a bed, and sitting up in the bed was the
boy. His little body bent forward with his nightshirt unbuttoned, he
was stretching and still yawning. The instant his lips came together
they curved into a blissfully sleepy smile, and with that smile he
slowly and deliciously rolled back again.
“Seryozha!” she whispered, going noiselessly up to him.
When she was parted from him, and all this latter time when she had
been feeling a fresh rush of love for him, she had pictured him as he
was at four years old, when she had loved him most of all. Now he was
not even the same as when she had left him; he was still further from
the four-year-old baby, more grown and thinner. How thin his face was,
how short his hair was! What long hands! How he had changed since she
left him! But it was he with his head, his lips, his soft neck and
broad little shoulders.
“Seryozha!” she repeated just in the child’s ear.
He raised himself again on his elbow, turned his tangled head from side
to side as though looking for something, and opened his eyes. Slowly
and inquiringly he looked for several seconds at his mother standing
motionless before him, then all at once he smiled a blissful smile, and
shutting his eyes, rolled not backwards but towards her into her arms.
“Seryozha! my darling boy!” she said, breathing hard and putting her
arms round his plump little body. “Mother!” he said, wriggling about in
her arms so as to touch her hands with different parts of him.
Smiling sleepily still with closed eyes, he flung fat little arms round
her shoulders, rolled towards her, with the delicious sleepy warmth and
fragrance that is only found in children, and began rubbing his face
against her neck and shoulders.
“I know,” he said, opening his eyes; “it’s my birthday today. I knew
you’d come. I’ll get up directly.”
And saying that he dropped asleep.
Anna looked at him hungrily; she saw how he had grown and changed in
her absence. She knew, and did not know, the bare legs so long now,
that were thrust out below the quilt, those short-cropped curls on his
neck in which she had so often kissed him. She touched all this and
could say nothing; tears choked her.
“What are you crying for, mother?” he said, waking completely up.
“Mother, what are you crying for?” he cried in a tearful voice.
“I won’t cry ... I’m crying for joy. It’s so long since I’ve seen you.
I won’t, I won’t,” she said, gulping down her tears and turning away.
“Come, it’s time for you to dress now,” she added, after a pause, and,
never letting go his hands, she sat down by his bedside on the chair,
where his clothes were put ready for him.
“How do you dress without me? How....” she tried to begin talking
simply and cheerfully, but she could not, and again she turned away.
“I don’t have a cold bath, papa didn’t order it. And you’ve not seen
Vassily Lukitch? He’ll come in soon. Why, you’re sitting on my
clothes!”
And Seryozha went off into a peal of laughter. She looked at him and
smiled.
“Mother, darling, sweet one!” he shouted, flinging himself on her again
and hugging her. It was as though only now, on seeing her smile, he
fully grasped what had happened.
“I don’t want that on,” he said, taking off her hat. And as it were,
seeing her afresh without her hat, he fell to kissing her again.
“But what did you think about me? You didn’t think I was dead?”
“I never believed it.”
“You didn’t believe it, my sweet?”
“I knew, I knew!” he repeated his favorite phrase, and snatching the
hand that was stroking his hair, he pressed the open palm to his mouth
and kissed it.
Chapter 30
Meanwhile Vassily Lukitch had not at first understood who this lady
was, and had learned from their conversation that it was no other
person than the mother who had left her husband, and whom he had not
seen, as he had entered the house after her departure. He was in doubt
whether to go in or not, or whether to communicate with Alexey
Alexandrovitch. Reflecting finally that his duty was to get Seryozha up
at the hour fixed, and that it was therefore not his business to
consider who was there, the mother or anyone else, but simply to do his
duty, he finished dressing, went to the door and opened it.
But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of their voices,
and what they were saying, made him change his mind.
He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. “I’ll wait
another ten minutes,” he said to himself, clearing his throat and
wiping away tears.
Among the servants of the household there was intense excitement all
this time. All had heard that their mistress had come, and that
Kapitonitch had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery,
and that their master always went in person to the nursery at nine
o’clock, and everyone fully comprehended that it was impossible for the
husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it. Korney, the
valet, going down to the hall-porter’s room, asked who had let her in,
and how it was he had done so, and ascertaining that Kapitonitch had
admitted her and shown her up, he gave the old man a talking-to. The
hall-porter was doggedly silent, but when Korney told him he ought to
be sent away, Kapitonitch darted up to him, and waving his hands in
Korney’s face, began:
“Oh yes, to be sure you’d not have let her in! After ten years’
service, and never a word but of kindness, and there you’d up and say,
‘Be off, go along, get away with you!’ Oh yes, you’re a shrewd one at
politics, I dare say! You don’t need to be taught how to swindle the
master, and to filch fur coats!”
“Soldier!” said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who
was coming in. “Here, what do you think, Marya Efimovna: he let her in
without a word to anyone,” Korney said addressing her. “Alexey
Alexandrovitch will be down immediately—and go into the nursery!”
“A pretty business, a pretty business!” said the nurse. “You, Korney
Vassilievitch, you’d best keep him some way or other, the master, while
I’ll run and get her away somehow. A pretty business!”
When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling his mother
how he and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill, and had turned
over three times. She was listening to the sound of his voice, watching
his face and the play of expression on it, touching his hand, but she
did not follow what he was saying. She must go, she must leave
him,—this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling. She heard
the steps of Vassily Lukitch coming up to the door and coughing; she
heard, too, the steps of the nurse as she came near; but she sat like
one turned to stone, incapable of beginning to speak or to get up.
“Mistress, darling!” began the nurse, going up to Anna and kissing her
hands and shoulders. “God has brought joy indeed to our boy on his
birthday. You aren’t changed one bit.”
“Oh, nurse dear, I didn’t know you were in the house,” said Anna,
rousing herself for a moment.