Anna Karenina - Part 3

The governess had a particularly severe expression. Seryozha

screamed shrilly, as he often did, "Ah, mamma!" and stopped,

hesitating whether to go to greet his mother and put down the

flowers, or to finish making the wreath and go with the flowers.

The governess, after saying good-morning, began a long and

detailed account of Seryozha's naughtiness, but Anna did not hear

her; she was considering whether she would take her with her or

not. "No, I won't take her," she decided. "I'll go alone with

my child."

"Yes, it's very wrong," said Anna, and taking her son by the

shoulder she looked at him, not severely, but with a timid glance

that bewildered and delighted the boy, and she kissed him.

"Leave him to me," she said to the astonished governess, and not

letting go of her son, she sat down at the table, where coffee

was set ready for her.

"Mamma! I...I...didn't..." he said, trying to make out from her

expression what was in store for him in regard to the peaches.

"Seryozha," she said, as soon as the governess had left the room,

"that was wrong, but you'll never do it again, will you?... You

love me?"

She felt that the tears were coming into her eyes. "Can I help

loving him?" she said to herself, looking deeply into his scared

and at the same time delighted eyes. "And can he ever join his

father in punishing me? Is it possible he will not feel for me?"

Tears were already flowing down her face, and to hide them she

got up abruptly and almost ran out on to the terrace.

After the thunder showers of the last few days, cold, bright

weather had set in. The air was cold in the bright sun that

filtered through the freshly washed leaves.

She shivered, both from the cold and from the inward horror which

had clutched her with fresh force in the open air.

"Run along, run along to Mariette," she said to Seryozha, who had

followed her out, and she began walking up and down on the straw

matting of the terrace. "Can it be that they won't forgive me,

won't understand how it all couldn't be helped?" she said to

herself.

Standing still, and looking at the tops of the aspen trees waving

in the wind, with their freshly washed, brightly shining leaves

in the cold sunshine, she knew that they would not forgive her,

that everyone and everything would be merciless to her now as

was that sky, that green. And again she felt that everything was

split in two in her soul. "I mustn't, mustn't think," she said

to herself. "I must get ready. To go where? When? Whom to

take with me? Yes, to Moscow by the evening train. Annushka and

Seryozha, and only the most necessary things. But first I must

write to them both." She went quickly indoors into her boudoir,

sat down at the table, and wrote to her husband:--"After what

has happened, I cannot remain any longer in your house. I am

going away, and taking my son with me. I don't know the law, and

so I don't know with which of the parents the son should remain;

but I take him with me because I cannot live without him. Be

generous, leave him to me."