Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 7
symptoms of a bad disposition, and so on. Rare indeed were the brief periods of
peace. But these cares and anxieties were for Darya Alexandrovna the sole happiness
possible. Had it not been for them, she would have been left alone to brood over
her husband who did not love her. And besides, hard though it was for the mother
to bear the dread of illness, the illnesses themselves, and the grief of seeing signs of
evil propensities in her children–the children themselves were even now repaying
her in small joys for her sufferings. Those joys were so small that they passed unnoticed,
like gold in sand, and at bad moments she could see nothing but the pain,
nothing but sand; but there were good moments too when she saw nothing but the
joy, nothing but gold.
Now in the solitude of the country, she began to be more and more frequently
aware of those joys. Often, looking at them, she would make every possible effort
to persuade herself that she was mistaken, that she as a mother was partial to her
children. All the same, she could not help saying to herself that she had charming
children, all six of them in different ways, but a set of children such as is not often to
be met with, and she was happy in them, and proud of them.
246