Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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had been sitting, surrounded by the children.
Either because the children saw that their mother was fond of
this aunt, or that they felt a special charm in her themselves,
the two elder ones, and the younger following their lead, as
children so often do, had clung about their new aunt since
before dinner, and would not leave her side. And it had become a
sort of game among them to sit a close as possible to their aunt,
to touch her, hold her little hand, kiss it, play with her ring,
or even touch the flounce of her skirt.
"Come, come, as we were sitting before," said Anna Arkadyevna,
sitting down in her place.
And again Grisha poked his little face under her arm, and nestled
with his head on her gown, beaming with pride and happiness.
"And when is your next ball?" she asked Kitty.
"Next week, and a splendid ball. One of those balls where one
always enjoys oneself."
"Why, are there balls where one always enjoys oneself?" Anna
said, with tender irony.
"Its strange, but there are. At the Bobrishtchevs one always
enjoys oneself, and at the Nikitins too, while at the Mezhkovs
its always dull. Havent you noticed it?"
"No, my dear, for me there are no balls now where one enjoys
oneself," said Anna, and Kitty detected in her eyes that
mysterious world which was not open to her. "For me there are
some less dull and tiresome."
"How can _you_ be dull at a ball?"
"Why should not _I_ be dull at a ball?" inquired Anna.
Kitty perceived that Anna knew what answer would follow.
"Because you always look nicer than anyone."
Anna had the faculty of blushing. She blushed a little, and
said:
"In the first place its never so; and secondly, if it were, what
difference would it make to me?"
"Are you coming to this ball?" asked Kitty.
"I imagine it wont be possible to avoid going. Here, take it,"
she said to Tanya, who was pulling the loosely-fitting ring off
her white, slender-tipped finger.
"I shall be so glad if you go. I should so like to see you at a
ball."
"Anyway, if I do go, I shall comfort myself with the thought that
its a pleasure to you...Grisha, dont pull my hair. Its untidy
enough without that," she said, putting up a straying lock, which
Grisha had been playing with.
"I imagine you at the ball in lilac."
"And why in lilac precisely?" asked Anna, smiling. "Now,
children, run along, run along. Do you hear? Miss Hoole is
calling you to tea," she said, tearing the children from her, and
sending them off to the dining room.
"I know why you press me to come to the ball. You expect a great
deal of this ball, and you want everyone to be there to take part
in it."
"How do you know? Yes."
"Oh! what a happy time you are at," pursued Anna. "I remember,
and I know that blue haze like the mist on the mountains in
Switzerland. That mist which covers everything in that blissful
time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle,
happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and
it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and
splendid as it is.... Who has not been through it?"
Kitty smiled without speaking. "But how did she go through it?
How I should like to know all her love story!" thought Kitty,
recalling the unromantic appearance of Alexey Alexandrovitch, her
husband.
"I know something. Stiva told me, and I congratulate you. I
liked him so much," Anna continued. "I met Vronsky at the
railway station."
"Oh, was he there?" asked Kitty, blushing. "What was it Stiva
told you?"
"Stiva gossiped about it all. And I should be so glad...I
traveled yesterday with Vronskys mother," she went on; "and his
mother talked without a pause of him, hes her favorite. I know
mothers are partial, but..."
"What did his mother tell you?"
"Oh, a great deal! And I know that hes her favorite; still one
can see how chivalrous he is.... Well, for instance, she told me
that he had wanted to give up all his property to his brother,
that he had done something extraordinary when he was quite a
child, saved a woman out of the water. Hes a hero, in fact,"
said Anna, smiling and recollecting the two hundred roubles he
had given at
Anna Karenina page 40 Anna Karenina page 42
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