Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 8
Chapter 8
TOWARDS the end of May, when everything had been more or less satisfactorily
arranged, she received her husband’s answer to her complaints of the disorganized
state of things in the country. He wrote begging her forgiveness for not having
thought of everything before, and promised to come down at the first chance. This
chance did not present itself, and till the beginning of June Darya Alexandrovna
stayed alone in the country.
On the Sunday in St. Peter’s week Darya Alexandrovna drove to mass for all her
children to take the sacrament. Darya Alexandrovna in her intimate, philosophical
talks with her sister, her mother, and her friends very often astonished them by the
freedom of her views in regard to religion. She had a strange religion of transmigration
of souls all her own, in which she had firm faith, troubling herself little about
the dogmas of the Church. But in her family she was strict in carrying out all that
was required by the Church–and not merely in order to set an example, but with all
her heart in it. The fact that the children had not been at the sacrament for nearly
a year worried her extremely, and with the full approval and sympathy of Marya
Philimonovna she decided that this should take place now in the summer.
For several days before, Darya Alexandrovna was busily deliberating on how to
dress all the children. Frocks were made or altered and washed, seams and flounces
were let out, buttons were sewn on, and ribbons got ready. One dress, Tanya’s, which
the English governess had undertaken, cost Darya Alexandrovna much loss of temper.
The English governess in altering it had made the seams in the wrong place, had
taken up the sleeves too much, and altogether spoilt the dress. It was so narrow on
Tanya’s shoulders that it was quite painful to look at her. But Marya Philimonovna
had the happy thought of putting in gussets, and adding a little shoulder-cape. The
dress was set right, but there was nearly a quarrel with the English governess. On
the morning, however, all was happily arranged, and towards ten o’clock–the time
at which they had asked the priest to wait for them for the mass–the children in their
new dresses, with beaming faces, stood on the step before the carriage waiting for
their mother.
To the carriage, instead of the restive Raven, they had harnessed, thanks to the representations
of Marya Philimonovna, the bailiff’s horse, Brownie, and Darya Alexandrovna,
delayed by anxiety over her own attire, came out and got in, dressed in a
white muslin gown.
Darya Alexandrovna had done her hair, and dressed with care and excitement. In
the old days she had dressed for her own sake to look pretty and be admired. Later
on, as she got older, dress became more and more distasteful to her. She saw that she
was losing her good looks. But now she began to feel pleasure and interest in dress
again. Now she did not dress for her own sake, not for the sake of her own beauty,
but simply that as the mother of those exquisite creatures she might not spoil the
general effect. And looking at herself for the last time in the looking-glass she was
satisfied with herself. She looked nice. Not nice as she would have wished to look
nice in old days at a ball, but nice for the object which she now had in view.
In the church there was no one but the peasants, the servants and their womenfolk.
But Darya Alexandrovna saw, or fancied she saw, the sensation produced by
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