Page 1687 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

nursery. ‘He must be put straight. A-oo! a-oo!’ she
chanted over him, paying no attention to the mother.
The nurse brought the baby to his mother. Agafea
Mihalovna followed him with a face dissolving with

tenderness.
‘He knows me, he knows me. In God’s faith, Katerina
Alexandrovna, ma’am, he knew me!’ Agafea Mihalovna
cried above the baby’s screams.
But Kitty did not hear her words. Her impatience kept
growing, like the baby’s.
Their impatience hindered things for a while. The baby
could not get hold of the breast right, and was furious.
At last, after despairing, breathless screaming, and vain
sucking, things went right, and mother and child felt
simultaneously soothed, and both subsided into calm.
‘But poor darling, he’s all in perspiration!’ said Kitty in
a whisper, touching the baby.
‘What makes you think he knows you?’ she added,
with a sidelong glance at the baby’s eyes, that peered
roguishly, as she fancied, from under his cap, at his
rhythmically puffing cheeks, and the little red-palmed
hand he was waving.

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