Page 165 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

incident. But this simple incident for some reason struck
everyone as strange. Talking about common acquaintances
in Petersburg, Anna got up quickly.
‘She is in my album,’ she said; ‘and, by the way, I’ll

show you by Seryozha,’ she added, with a mother’s smile
of pride.
Towards ten o’clock, when she usually said good-night
to her son, and often before going to a ball put him to bed
herself, she felt depressed at being so far from him; and
whatever she was talking about, she kept coming back in
thought to her curly-headed Seryozha. She longed to look
at his photograph and talk of him. Seizing the first pretext,
she got up, and with her light, resolute step went for her
album. The stairs up to her room came out on the landing
of the great warm main staircase.
Just as she was leaving the drawing room, a ring was
heard in the hall.
‘Who can that be?’ said Dolly
‘It’s early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else it’s
late,’ observed Kitty.
‘Sure to be someone with papers for me,’ put in Stepan
Arkadyevitch. When Anna was passing the top of the
staircase, a servant was running up to announce the visitor,
while the visitor himself was standing under a lamp. Anna

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