Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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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.
"Mistress, darling!" began the nurse, going up to Anna and
kissing her hands and shoulders. "God has brought joy indeed to
our boy on his birthday. You arent changed one bit."
"Oh, nurse dear, I didnt know you were in the house," said Anna,
rousing herself for a moment.
"Im not living here, Im living with my daughter. I came for
the birthday, Anna Arkadyevna, darling!"
The nurse suddenly burst into tears, and began kissing her hand
again.
Seryozha, with radiant eyes and smiles, holding his mother by one
hand and his nurse by the other, pattered on the rug with his fat
little bare feet. The tenderness shown by his beloved nurse to
his mother threw him into an ecstasy.
"Mother! She often comes to see me, and when she comes..." he
was beginning, but he stopped, noticing that the nurse was saying
something in a whisper to his mother, and that in his mothers
face there was a look of dread and something like shame, which
was so strangely unbecoming to her.
She went up to him.
"My sweet!" she said.
She could not say _good-bye_, but the expression on her face said
it, and he understood. "Darling, darling Kootik!" she used the
name by which she had called him when he was little, "you wont
forget me? You..." but she could not say more.
How often afterwards she thought of words she might have said.
But now she did not know how to say it, and could say nothing.
But Seryozha knew all she wanted to say to him. He understood
that she was unhappy and loved him. He understood even what the
nurse had whispered. He had caught the words "always at nine
oclock," and he knew that this was said of his father, and that
his father and mother could not meet. That he understood, but
one thing he could not understand--why there should be a look of
dread and shame in her face?... She was not in fault, but she
was afraid of him and ashamed of something. He would have liked
to put a question that would have set at rest this doubt, but he
did not dare; he saw that she was miserable, and he felt for her.
Silently he pressed close to her and whispered, "Dont go yet.
He wont come just yet."
The mother held him away from her to see what he was thinking,
what to say to him, and in his frightened face she read not only
that he was speaking of his father, but, as it were, asking her
what he ought to think about his father.
"Seryozha, my darling," she said, "love him; hes better and
kinder than I am, and I have done him wrong. When you grow up
you will judge."
"Theres no one better than you!..." he cried in despair through
his tears, and, clutching her by the shoulders, he began
squeezing her with all his force to him, his arms trembling with
the strain.
"My sweet, my little one!" said Anna, and she cried as weakly and
childishly as he.
At that moment the door opened. Vassily Lukitch came in.
At the other door there was the sound of steps, and the nurse in
a scared whisper said, "Hes coming," and gave Anna her hat.
Seryozha sank onto the bed and sobbed, hiding his face in his
hands. Anna removed his hands, once more kissed his wet face,
and with rapid steps went to the door. Alexey Alexandrovitch
walked in, meeting her. Seeing her, he stopped short and bowed
his head.
Although she had just said he was better and kinder than she, in
the rapid glance she flung at him, taking in his whole figure in
all its details, feelings of repulsion and hatred for him and
jealousy over her son took possession of her. With a swift
gesture she put down her veil, and, quickening her pace, almost
ran out of the room.
She had not time to undo, and so carried back with her, the
parcel of toys she had chosen the day before in a toy shop with
such
Anna Karenina page 308 Anna Karenina page 310
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