Page 1166 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘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.
‘I’m not living here, I’m living with my daughter. I
came for the birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling!’

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