Page 1156 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

her; she had so looked forward to this meeting, she had so
much she must say to him, she so longed to embrace him,
to kiss him. Seryozha’s old nurse might be a help to her
and show her what to do. But the nurse was not now

living in Alexey Alexandrovitch’s house. In this
uncertainty, and in efforts to find the nurse, two days had
slipped by.
Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexey
Alexandrovitch and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna
decided on the third day to write to 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 generosity. She knew that if the letter were
shown to her husband, he would keep up his character 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 the commissionaire, she heard
from him the exact account of how he had waited, and
how afterwards 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 that she had to bear it in

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