第228章

Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexei Alexandrovich and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna decided on the third day to write her a letter, which cost her great pains, and in which she intentionally said that permission to see her son must depend on her husband's magnanimity. She knew that if the letter were shown to her husband, he would keep up his role of magnanimity, and would not refuse her request.

The commissionaire who took the letter had brought her back the most cruel and unexpected answer - that there was no answer. She had never felt so humiliated as at the moment when, sending for commissionaire, she heard from him the exact account of how he had waited, and how afterward he had been told there was no answer. Anna felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that from her point of view Countess Lidia Ivanovna was right.

Her suffering was the more poignant since 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 is simulation 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, Seriozha's birthday, she would go straight to her husband's house, bribe the servants, deceive the people, but at any cost see her son and overturn the hideous deception with which they were encompassing the unhappy child.

She went to a toyshop, bought toys, and thought over a plan of action. She would go early in the morning at eight o'clock, when Alexei Alexandrovich 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, without raising her veil, she would say that she had come from Seriozha'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 she 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 coach and rang at the front entrance of her former home.

`Run and see what's wanted. Some lady,' said Kapitonich, 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.

`Seriozha - Sergei Alexeich,' 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, Kapitonich went out to her, opened the second door for her, and asked her what she was pleased to want.

`From Prince Skorodumov for Sergei Alexeich,' she said.

`He'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 Kapitonich, taking off her fur cloak.

As he took off the cloak, Kapitonich 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, Kapitonich 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.

He's in the former smoking room 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, 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.

`Seriozha!' she whispered, walking noiselessly up to him.