Anna Karenina - Part 1

It was Friday, and in the dining room the German watchmaker was

winding up the clock. Stepan Arkadyevitch remembered his joke

about this punctual, bald watchmaker, "that the German was wound

up for a whole lifetime himself, to wind up watches," and he

smiled. Stepan Arkadyevitch was fond of a joke: "And maybe she

will come round! That's a good expression, '_come round,_'" he

thought. "I must repeat that."

"Matvey!" he shouted. "Arrange everything with Darya in the

sitting room for Anna Arkadyevna," he said to Matvey when he came

in.

"Yes, sir."

Stepan Arkadyevitch put on his fur coat and went out onto the

steps.

"You won't dine at home?" said Matvey, seeing him off.

"That's as it happens. But here's for the housekeeping," he

said, taking ten roubles from his pocketbook. "That'll be

enough."

"Enough or not enough, we must make it do," said Matvey, slamming

the carriage door and stepping back onto the steps.

Darya Alexandrovna meanwhile having pacified the child, and

knowing from the sound of the carriage that he had gone off, went

back again to her bedroom. It was her solitary refuge from the

household cares which crowded upon her directly she went out from

it. Even now, in the short time she had been in the nursery, the

English governess and Matrona Philimonovna had succeeded in

putting several questions to her, which did not admit of delay,

and which only she could answer: "What were the children to put

on for their walk? Should they have any milk? Should not a new

cook be sent for?"

"Ah, let me alone, let me alone!" she said, and going back to her

bedroom she sat down in the same place as she had sat when

talking to her husband, clasping tightly her thin hands with the

rings that slipped down on her bony fingers, and fell to going

over in her memory all the conversation. "He has gone! But has

he broken it off with her?" she thought. "Can it be he sees her?

Why didn't I ask him! No, no, reconciliation is impossible.

Even if we remain in the same house, we are strangers--strangers

forever!" She repeated again with special significance the word

so dreadful to her. "And how I loved him! my God, how I loved

him!.... How I loved him! And now don't I love him? Don't I

love him more than before? The most horrible thing is," she

began, but did not finish her thought, because Matrona

Philimonovna put her head in at the door.