Page 920 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Alexey Alexandrovitch sat down, and with a
despondent and suffering face watched the nurse walking
to and fro.
When the child at last was still, and had been put in a

deep bed, and the nurse, after smoothing the little pillow,
had left her, Alexey Alexandrovitch got up, and walking
awkwardly on tiptoe, approached the baby. For a minute
he was still, and with the same despondent face gazed at
the baby; but all at once a smile, that moved his hair and
the skin of his forehead, came out on his face, and he went
as softly out of the room.
In the dining room he rang the bell, and told the
servant who came in to send again for the doctor. He felt
vexed with his wife for not being anxious about this
exquisite baby, and in this vexed humor he had no wish to
go to her; he had no wish, either, to see Princess Betsy.
But his wife might wonder why he did not go to her as
usual; and so, overcoming his disinclination, he went
towards the bedroom. As he walked over the soft rug
towards the door, he could not help overhearing a
conversation he did not want to hear.
‘If he hadn’t been going away, I could have understood
your answer and his too. But your husband ought to be
above that,’ Betsy was saying.

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