Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 8
Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch trees, and went to the
bathing-place. The coachman, Terenty, fastened the horses, who kept whisking away
the flies, to a tree, and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch and
smoked his shag, while the never-ceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated
across to him from the bathing-place.
Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their wild
pranks, though it was difficult too to keep in one’s head and not mix up all the
stockings, little breeches, and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up
again all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always liked bathing
herself, and believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much
as bathing with all the children. To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their
stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies, and to hear their
screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wide-open, scared,
and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her.
When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday
dress, out picking herbs, came up to the bathing-shed and stopped shyly. Marya
Philimonovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and a shirt that had
dropped into the water for her to dry them, and Darya Alexandrovna began to talk
to the women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand
her questions, but soon they grew bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna’s
heart at once by the genuine admiration of the children that they showed.
“My, what a beauty! as white as sugar,” said one, admiring Tanitchka, and shaking
her head; “but thin...”
“Yes, she has been ill.”
“And so they’ve been bathing you too,” said another to the baby.
“No; he’s only three months old,” answered Darya Alexandrovna with pride.
“You don’t say so!”
“And have you any children?”
“I’ve had four; I’ve two living–a boy and a girl. I weaned her last carnival.”
“How old is she?”
“Why, two years old.”
“Why did you nurse her so long?”
“It’s our custom; for three fasts...”
And the conversation became most interesting to Darya Alexandrovna. What sort
of time did she have? What was the matter with the boy? Where was her husband?
Did it often happen?
Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting
to her was their conversation, so completely identical were all their interests. What
pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more
than anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The peasant
women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the English governess,
because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the
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