Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART FIVE CHAPTER 30
Chapter 30
MEANWHILE Vassily Lukitch had not at first understood who this lady was, and
had learned from their conversation that it was no other person than the
mother who had left her husband, and whom he had not seen, as he had entered
the house after her departure. He was in doubt whether to go in or not, or whether
to communicate with Alexey Alexandrovitch. Reflecting finally that his duty was
to get Seryozha up at the hour fixed, and that it was therefore not his business to
consider who was there, the mother or anyone else, but simply to do his duty, he
finished dressing, went to the door and opened it.
But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of their voices, and what they
were saying, made him change his mind.
He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. “I’ll wait another ten
minutes,” he said to himself, clearing his throat and wiping away tears.
Among the servants of the household there was intense excitement all this time.
All had heard that their mistress had come, and that Kapitonitch had let her in, and
that she was even now in the nursery, and that their master always went in person to
the nursery at nine o’clock, and every one fully comprehended that it was impossible
for the husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it. Korney, the valet,
going down to the hall porter’s room, asked who had let her in, and how it was
he had done so, and ascertaining that Kapitonitch had admitted her and shown her
up, he gave the old man a talking-to. The hall porter was doggedly silent, but when
Korney told him he ought to be sent away, Kapitonitch darted up to him, and waving
his hands in Korney’s face, began:
“Oh yes, to be sure you’d not have let her in! After ten years’ service, and never a
word but of kindness, and there you’d up and say, ‘Be off, go along, get away with
you!’ Oh yes, you’re a shrewd one at politics, I dare say! You don’t need to be taught
how to swindle the master, and to filch fur coats!”
“Soldier!” said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse who was
coming in. “Here, what do you think, Marya Efimovna: he let her in without a
word to anyone,” Korney said addressing her. “Alexey Alexandrovitch will be down
immediately–and go into the nursery!”
“A pretty business, a pretty business!” said the nurse. “You, Korney Vassilievitch,
you’d best keep him some way or other, the master, while I’ll run and get her away
somehow. A pretty business!”
When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling his mother how he
and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill, and had turned over three times.
She was listening to the sound of his voice, watching his face and the play of expression
on it, touching his hand, but she did not follow what he was saying. She must
go, she must leave him,–this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling. She
heard the steps of Vassily Lukitch coming up to the door and coughing; she heard,
too, the steps of the nurse as she came near; but she sat like one turned to stone,
incapable of beginning to speak or to get up.
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