Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 22
Chapter 22
THE rain did not last long, and by the time Vronsky arrived, his shaft-horse trotting
at full speed and dragging the trace-horses galloping through the mud,
with their reins hanging loose, the sun had peeped out again, the roofs of the summer
villas and the old limetrees in the gardens on both sides of the principal streets
sparkled with wet brilliance, and from the twigs came a pleasant drip and from the
roofs rushing streams of water. He thought no more of the shower spoiling the race
course, but was rejoicing now that–thanks to the rain–he would be sure to find her
at home and alone, as he knew that Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had lately returned
from a foreign watering place, had not moved from Petersburg.
Hoping to find her alone, Vronsky alighted, as he always did, to avoid attracting
attention, before crossing the bridge, and walked to the house. He did not go up the
steps to the street door, but went into the court.
“Has your master come?” he asked a gardener.
“No, sir. The mistress is at home. But will you please go to the front door; there
are servants there,” the gardener answered. “They’ll open the door.”
“No, I’ll go in from the garden.”
And feeling satisfied that she was alone, and wanting to take her by surprise,
since he had not promised to be there today, and she would certainly not expect
him to come before the races, he walked, holding his sword and stepping cautiously
over the sandy path, bordered with flowers, to the terrace that looked out upon the
garden. Vronsky forgot now all that he had thought on the way of the hardships
and difficulties of their position. He thought of nothing but that he would see her
directly, not in imagination, but living, all of her, as she was in reality. He was just
going in, stepping on his whole foot so as not to creak, up the worn steps of the
terrace, when he suddenly remembered what he always forgot, and what caused the
most torturing side of his relations with her, her son with his questioning–hostile, as
he fancied–eyes.
This boy was more often than anyone else a check upon their freedom. When he
was present, both Vronsky and Anna did not merely avoid speaking of anything that
they could not have repeated before everyone; they did not even allow themselves to
refer by hints to anything the boy did not understand. They had made no agreement
about this, it had settled itself. They would have felt it wounding themselves to
deceive the child. In his presence they talked like acquaintances. But in spite of this
caution, Vronsky often saw the child’s intent, bewildered glance fixed upon him,
and a strange shyness, uncertainty, at one time friendliness, at another, coldness and
reserve, in the boy’s manner to him; as though the child felt that between this man
and his mother there existed some important bond, the significance of which he
could not understand.
As a fact, the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried
painfully, and was not able to make clear to himself what feeling he ought to have
for this man. With a child’s keen instinct for every manifestation of feeling, he saw
distinctly that his father, his governess, his nurse,–all did not merely dislike Vronsky,
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