Page 580 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘You don’t say so!’
‘And have you any children?’
‘I’ve had four; I’ve two living—a boy and a girl. I
weaned her last carnival.’

‘How old is she?’
‘Why, two years old.’
‘Why did you nurse her so long?’
‘It’s our custom; for three fasts..’
And the conversation became most interesting to Darya
Alexandrovna. What sort of time did she have? What was
the matter with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it
often happen?
Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant
women, so interesting to her was their conversation, so
completely identical were all their interests. What pleased
her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the
women admired more than anything was her having so
many children, and such fine ones. The peasant women
even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the
English governess, because she was the cause of the
laughter she did not understand. One of the younger
women kept staring at the Englishwoman, who was
dressing after all the rest, and when she put on her third
petticoat she could not refrain from the remark, ‘My, she

579 of 1759