Page 237 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 32

The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He
dashed down the stairs to her, in spite of the governess’s
call, and with desperate joy shrieked: ‘Mother! mother!’
Running up to her, he hung on her neck.
‘I told you it was mother!’ he shouted to the governess.
‘I knew!’
And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a
feeling akin to disappointment. She had imagined him
better than he was in reality. She had to let herself drop
down to the reality to enjoy him as he really was. But
even as he was, he was charming, with his fair curls, his
blue eyes, and his plump, graceful little legs in tightly
pulled-up stockings. Anna experienced almost physical
pleasure in the sensation of his nearness, and his caresses,
and moral soothing, when she met his simple, confiding,
and loving glance, and heard his naive questions. Anna
took out the presents Dolly’s children had sent him, and
told her son what sort of little girl was Tanya at Moscow,
and how Tanya could read, and even taught the other
children.
‘Why, am I not so nice as she?’ asked Seryozha.

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