Page 575 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Alexandrovna, delayed by anxiety over her own attire,
came out and got in, dressed in a white muslin gown.
Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair, and dressed
with care and excitement. In the old days she had dressed

for her own sake to look pretty and be admired. Later on,
as she got older, dress became more and more distasteful to
her. She saw that she was losing her good looks. But now
she began to feel pleasure and interest in dress again. Now
she did not dress for her own sake, not for the sake of her
own beauty, but simply that as the mother of those
exquisite creatures she might not spoil the general effect.
And looking at herself for the last time in the looking-glass
she was satisfied with herself. She looked nice. Not nice as
she would have wished to look nice in old days at a ball,
but nice for the object which she now had in view.
In the church there was no one but the peasants, the
servants and their women-folk. But Darya Alexandrovna
saw, or fancied she saw, the sensation produced by her
children and her. The children were not only beautiful to
look at in their smart little dresses, but they were charming
in the way they behaved. Aliosha, it is true, did not stand
quite correctly; he kept turning round, trying to look at
his little jacket from behind; but all the same he was
wonderfully sweet. Tanya behaved like a grownup person,

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