Part One: Chapter 32

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The first person to meet Anna at home was her son. He dasheddown the stairs to her, in spite of the governess's call, andwith desperate joy shrieked: "Mother! mother!" Running up toher, he hung on her neck.

　　"I told you it was mother!" he shouted to the governess. "Iknew!"

　　And her son, like her husband, aroused in Anna a feeling akin todisappointment. She had imagined him better than he was inreality. She had to let herself drop down to the reality toenjoy him as he really was. But even as he was, he was charming,with his fair curls, his blue eyes, and his plump, gracefullittle legs in tightly pulled-up stockings. Anna experiencedalmost physical pleasure in the sensation of his nearness, andhis caresses, and moral soothing, when she met his simple,confiding, and loving glance, and heard his naive questions.Anna took out the presents Dolly's children had sent him, andtold her son what sort of little girl was Tanya at Moscow, andhow Tanya could read, and even taught the other children.

　　"Why, am I not so nice as she?" asked Seryozha.

　　To me you're nicer than anyone in the world."

　　"I know that," said Seryozha, smiling.

　　Anna had not had time to drink her coffee when the Countess LidiaIvanovna was announced. The Countess Lidia Ivanovna was a tall,stout woman, with an unhealthily sallow face and splendid,pensive black eyes. Anna liked her, but today she seemed to beseeing her for the first time with all her defects.

　　"Well, my dear, so you took the olive branch?" inquired CountessLidia Ivanovna, as soon as she came into the room.

　　"Yes, it's all over, but it was all much less serious than we hadsupposed," answered Anna. "My belle-soeur is in general toohasty."

　　But Countess Lidia Ivanovna, though she was interested ineverything that did not concern her, had a habit of neverlistening to what interested her; she interrupted Anna:

　　"Yes, there's plenty of sorrow and evil in the world. I am soworried today."

　　"Oh, why?" asked Anna, trying to suppress a smile.

　　"I'm beginning to be weary of fruitlessly championing the truth,and sometimes I'm quite unhinged by it. The Society of theLittle Sisters" (this was a religiously-patriotic, philanthropicinstitution) "was going splendidly, but with these gentlemen it'simpossible to do anything," added Countess Lidia Ivanovna in atone of ironical submission to destiny. "They pounce on theidea, and distort it, and then work it out so pettily andunworthily. Two or three people, your husband among them,understand all the importance of the thing, but the others simplydrag it down. Yesterday Pravdin wrote to me..."

　　Pravdin was a well-known Panslavist abroad, and Countess LidiaIvanovna described the purport of his letter.

　　Then the countess told her of more disagreements and intriguesagainst the work of the unification of the churches, and departedin haste, as she had that day to be at the meeting of somesociety and also at the Slavonic committee.

　　"It was all the same before, of course; but why was it I didn'tnotice it before?" Anna asked herself. "Or has she been verymuch irritated today? It's really ludicrous; her object is doinggood; she a Christian, yet she's always angry; and she always hasenemies, and always enemies in the name of Christianity and doinggood."

　　After Countess Lidia Ivanovna another friend came, the wife of achief secretary, who told her all the news of the town. At threeo'clock she too went away, promising to come to dinner. AlexeyAlexandrovitch was at the ministry. Anna, left alone, spent thetime till dinner in assisting at her son's dinner (he dined apartfrom his parents) and in putting her things in order, and inreading and answering the notes and letters which had accumulatedon her table.

　　The feeling of causeless shame, which she had felt on thejourney, and her excitement, too, had completely vanished. Inthe habitual conditions of her life she felt again resolute andirreproachable.

　　She recalled with wonder her state of mind on the previous day."What was it? Nothing. Vronsky said something silly, which itwas easy to put a stop to, and I answered as I ought to havedone. To speak of it to my husband would be unnecessary and outof the question. To speak of it would be to attach importance towhat has no importance." She remembered how she had told herhusband of what was almost a declaration made her at Petersburgby a young man, one of her husband's subordinates, and how AlexeyAlexandrovitch had answered that every woman living in the worldwas exposed to such incidents, but that he had the fullestconfidence in her tact, and could never lower her and himself byjealousy. "So then there's no reason to speak of it? Andindeed, thank God, there's nothing to speak of," she toldherself.