Anna Karenina - Part 3

"Ah, what am I doing!" she said to herself, feeling a sudden

thrill of pain in both sides of her head. When she came to

herself, she saw that she was holding her hair in both hands,

each side of her temples, and pulling it. She jumped up, and

began walking about.

"The coffee is ready, and mademoiselle and Seryozha are waiting,"

said Annushka, coming back again and finding Anna in the same

position.

"Seryozha? What about Seryozha?" Anna asked, with sudden

eagerness, recollecting her son's existence for the first time

that morning.

"He's been naughty, I think," answered Annushka with a smile.

"In what way?"

"Some peaches were lying on the table in the corner room. I

think he slipped in and ate one of them on the sly."

The recollection of her son suddenly roused Anna from the

helpless condition in which she found herself. She recalled the

partly sincere, though greatly exaggerated, rôle of the mother

living for her child, which she had taken up of late years, and

she felt with joy that in the plight in which she found herself

she had a support, quite apart from her relation to her husband

or to Vronsky. This support was her son. In whatever position

she might be placed, she could not lose her son. Her husband

might put her to shame and turn her out, Vronsky might grow cold

to her and go on living his own life apart (she thought of him

again with bitterness and reproach); she could not leave her son.

She had an aim in life. And she must act; act to secure this

relation to her son, so that he might not be taken from her.

Quickly indeed, as quickly as possible, she must take action

before he was taken from her. She must take her son and go away.

Here was the one thing she had to do now. She needed

consolation. She must be calm, and get out of this insufferable

position. The thought of immediate action binding her to her

son, of going away somewhere with him, gave her this consolation.

She dressed quickly, went downstairs, and with resolute steps

walked into the drawing room, where she found, as usual, waiting

for her, the coffee, Seryozha, and his governess. Seryozha, all

in white, with his back and head bent, was standing at a table

under a looking-glass, and with an expression of intense

concentration which she knew well, and in which he resembled his

father, he was doing something to the flowers he carried.