Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 22
but looked on him with horror and aversion, though they never said anything about
him, while his mother looked on him as her greatest friend.
“What does it mean? Who is he? How ought I to love him? If I don’t know,
it’s my fault; either I’m stupid or a naughty boy,” thought the child. And this was
what caused his dubious, inquiring, sometimes hostile, expression, and the shyness
and uncertainty which Vronsky found so irksome. This child’s presence always and
infallibly called up in Vronsky that strange feeling of inexplicable loathing which he
had experienced of late. This child’s presence called up both in Vronsky and in Anna
a feeling akin to the feeling of a sailor who sees by the compass that the direction in
which he is swiftly moving is far from the right one, but that to arrest his motion is
not in his power, that every instant is carrying him further and further away, and that
to admit to himself his deviation from the right direction is the same as admitting his
certain ruin.
This child, with his innocent outlook upon life, was the compass that showed them
the point to which they had departed from what they knew, but did not want to
know.
This time Seryozha was not at home, and she was completely alone. She was
sitting on the terrace waiting for the return of her son, who had gone out for his
walk and been caught in the rain. She had sent a manservant and a maid out to
look for him. Dressed in a white gown, deeply embroidered, she was sitting in a
corner of the terrace behind some flowers, and did not hear him. Bending her curly
black head, she pressed her forehead against a cool watering pot that stood on the
parapet, and both her lovely hands, with the rings he knew so well, clasped the pot.
The beauty of her whole figure, her head, her neck, her hands, struck Vronsky every
time as something new and unexpected. He stood still, gazing at her in ecstasy. But,
directly he would have made a step to come nearer to her, she was aware of his
presence, pushed away the watering pot, and turned her flushed face towards him.
“What’s the matter? You are ill?” he said to her in French, going up to her. He
would have run to her, but remembering that there might be spectators, he looked
round towards the balcony door, and reddened a little, as he always reddened, feeling
that he had to be afraid and be on his guard.
“No, I’m quite well,” she said, getting up and pressing his outstretched hand
tightly. “I did not expect...thee.”
“Mercy! what cold hands!” he said.
“You startled me,” she said. “I’m alone, and expecting Seryozha; he’s out for a
walk; they’ll come in from this side.”
But, in spite of her efforts to be calm, her lips were quivering.
“Forgive me for coming, but I couldn’t pass the day without seeing you,” he went
on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form,
so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular.
“Forgive you? I’m so glad!”
“But you’re ill or worried,” he went on, not letting go her hands and bending over
her. “What were you thinking of?”
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