Page 1170 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 31

As intensely as Anna had longed to see her son, and
long as she had been thinking of it and preparing herself
for it, she had not in the least expected that seeing him
would affect her so deeply. On getting back to her lonely
rooms in the hotel she could not for a long while
understand why she was there. ‘Yes, it’s all over, and I am
again alone,’ she said to herself, and without taking off her
hat she sat down in a low chair by the hearth. Fixing her
eyes on a bronze clock standing on a table between the
windows, she tried to think.
The French maid brought from abroad came in to
suggest she should dress. She gazed at her wonderingly and
said, ‘Presently.’ A footman offered her coffee. ‘Later on,’
she said.
The Italian nurse, after having taken the baby out in
her best, came in with her, and brought her to Anna. The
plump, well-fed little baby, on seeing her mother, as she
always did, held out her fat little hands, and with a smile
on her toothless mouth, began, like a fish with a float,
bobbing her fingers up and down the starched folds of her
embroidered skirt, making them rustle. It was impossible

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