Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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the station.
But she did not tell Kitty about the two hundred roubles. For
some reason it was disagreeable to her to think of it. She felt
that there was something that had to do with her in it, and
something that ought not to have been.
"She pressed me very much to go and see her," Anna went on; "and
I shall be glad to go to see her tomorrow. Stiva is staying a
long while in Dollys room, thank God," Anna added, changing the
subject, and getting up, Kitty fancied, displeased with
something.
"No, Im first! No, I!" screamed the children, who had finished
tea, running up to their Aunt Anna.
"All together," said Anna, and she ran laughing to meet them, and
embraced and swung round all the throng of swarming children,
shrieking with delight.
Chapter 21
Dolly came out of her room to the tea of the grown-up people.
Stepan Arkadyevitch did not come out. He must have left his
wifes room by the other door.
"I am afraid youll be cold upstairs," observed Dolly, addressing
Anna; "I want to move you downstairs, and we shall be nearer."
"Oh, please, dont trouble about me," answered Anna, looking
intently into Dollys face, trying to make out whether there had
been a reconciliation or not.
"It will be lighter for you here," answered her sister-in-law.
"I assure you that I sleep everywhere, and always like a marmot."
"Whats the question?" inquired Stepan Arkadyevitch, coming out
of his room and addressing his wife.
From his tone both Kitty and Anna knew that a reconciliation had
taken place.
"I want to move Anna downstairs, but we must hang up blinds. No
one knows how to do it; I must see to it myself," answered Dolly
addressing him.
"God knows whether they are fully reconciled," thought Anna,
hearing her tone, cold and composed.
"Oh, nonsense, Dolly, always making difficulties," answered her
husband. "Come, Ill do it all, if you like..."
"Yes, they must be reconciled," thought Anna.
"I know how you do everything," answered Dolly. "You tell Matvey
to do what cant be done, and go away yourself, leaving him to
make a muddle of everything," and her habitual, mocking smile
curved the corners of Dollys lips as she spoke.
"Full, full reconciliation, full," thought Anna; "thank God!" and
rejoicing that she was the cause of it, she went up to Dolly and
kissed her.
"Not at all. Why do you always look down on me and Matvey?" said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling hardly perceptibly, and addressing
his wife.
The whole evening Dolly was, as always, a little mocking in her
tone to her husband, while Stepan Arkadyevitch was happy and
cheerful, but not so as to seem as though, having been forgiven,
he had forgotten his offense.
At half-past nine oclock a particularly joyful and pleasant
family conversation over the tea-table at the Oblonskys was
broken up by an apparently simple incident. But this simple
incident for some reason struck everyone as strange. Talking
about common acquaintances in Petersburg, Anna got up quickly.
"She is in my album," she said; "and, by the way, Ill show you
my Seryozha," she added, with a mothers smile of pride.
Towards ten oclock, when she usually said good-night to her son,
and often before going to a ball put him to bed herself, she felt
depressed at being so far from him; and whatever she was talking
about, she kept coming back in thought to her curly-headed
Seryozha. She longed to look at his photograph and talk of him.
Seizing the first pretext, she got up, and with her light,
resolute step went for her album. The stairs up to her room came
out on the landing of the great warm main staircase.
Just as she was leaving the drawing room, a ring was heard in the
hall.
"Who can that be?" said Dolly.
"Its early for me to be fetched, and for anyone else its late,"
observed Kitty.
"Sure to be someone with papers for me," put in Stepan
Arkadyevitch. When Anna was passing the top of the staircase, a
servant was running up to announce the visitor, while the visitor
himself was standing under a lamp. Anna glancing down at once
recognized Vronsky, and a strange feeling of pleasure and at the
same time of dread of something stirred in her heart. He was
standing still, not taking off his coat, pulling something out of
his pocket. At the instant when she was just facing the stairs,
he raised his eyes, caught sight of her,
Anna Karenina page 41 Anna Karenina page 43
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