第229章

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 farther than ever 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.

`Seriozha!' she repeated, in the child's very ear.

He raised himself again on his elbow, turned his tousled head from side to side, as though looking for something, and opened his eyes.

Quietly 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 again, rolled not backward but toward her, into her arms.

`Seriozha! My darling boy!' she said, breathing hard and putting her arms around 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 his fat little arms round her shoulders, rolled toward 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 knew,' 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; she knew 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 up completely.

`Mother, what are you crying for?' he cried in a tearful voice.

`I?... 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 made an attempt to talk 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 Vassilii Lukich? He'll come in soon. Why, you're sitting on my clothes!'

And Seriozha 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 if 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.

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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 5, Chapter 30[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 30 Meanwhile Vassilii Lukich 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 Alexei Alexandrovich. Reflecting finally that his duty was to get Seriozha 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 Kapitonich had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery, and everyone knew 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. Kornei, 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 Kapitonich had admitted her and shown her up, he gave the old man a talking-to. The hall porter was doggedly silent, but when Kornei told him he ought to be sent packing Kapitonich darted up to him, and, shaking his hands in Kornei'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 raccoon fur coats!'

`Soldier!' said Kornei contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who was coming in. `Here, what do you think, Maria Efimovna: he let her in without a word to anyone,' Kornei said addressing her. `Alexei Alexandrovich will be down immediately - and will go into the nursery!'

`A pretty business, a pretty business!' said the nurse, `You, Kornei Vassilyevich - you'd best detain the master some way or other, while I'll run and get her away somehow. A pretty business!'