Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [112]
Indeed, the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried but was unable to make out what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child’s sensitivity to any show of feelings, he saw clearly that his father, his governess, his nanny-all of them not only disliked Vronsky, but looked at him with disgust and fear, though they never said anything about him, while his mother looked at him as at a best friend.
‘What does it mean? Who is he? How should I love him? If I don’t understand, I’m to blame, or else I’m stupid, or a bad boy,’ the child thought; and this led to his probing, questioning, partly inimical expression, and to his timidity and unevenness, which so embarrassed Vronsky. The child’s presence always and inevitably provoked in Vronsky that strange feeling of groundless loathing he had been experiencing lately. It provoked in Vronsky and Anna a feeling like that of a mariner who can see by his compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving diverges widely from his proper course, but that he is powerless to stop the movement which every moment takes him further and further from the right direction, and that to admit the deviation to himself is the same as admitting disaster.
This child with his naive outlook on life was the compass which showed them the degree of their departure from what they knew but did not want to know.
This time Seryozha was not at home, and she was quite alone, sitting on the terrace, waiting for the return of her son, who had gone for a walk and had been caught in the rain. She had sent a man and a maid to look for him and sat waiting. Wearing a white dress with wide embroidery, she was sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers and did not hear him. Her dark, curly head bowed, she leaned her forehead to the cold watering can that stood on the parapet, and her two beautiful hands with their so-familiar rings held the watering can in place. The beauty of her whole figure, her head, neck, and arms, struck Vronsky each time as something unexpected. He stood gazing at her in admiration. But as soon as he wanted to take a step to approach her, she felt his approach, pushed the watering can away, and turned her flushed face to him.
‘What’s the matter? You’re unwell?’ he said in French, going up to her. He wanted to run to her, but remembering that other people might be there, he glanced back at the balcony door and blushed as he did each time he felt he had to be afraid and look around.
‘No, I’m well,’ she said, getting up and firmly pressing the hand he held out. ‘I didn’t expect ... you.’
‘My God, what cold hands!’ he said.
‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘I’m alone and waiting for Seryozha. He went for a walk, they’ll come from that way.’
But, despite all her efforts to be calm, her lips were trembling.
‘Forgive me for coming, but I couldn’t let the day pass without seeing you,’ he went on in French, as he always did, avoiding the impossible coldness of formal Russian and the danger of the informal.
‘What is there to forgive? I’m so glad!’
‘But you’re unwell or upset,’ he went on, without letting go of her hand and bending over her. ‘What were you thinking about?’
‘Always the same thing,’ she said with a smile.
She was telling the truth. Whenever, at whatever moment, she might be asked what she was thinking about, she could answer without mistake: about the same thing, about her happiness and her unhappiness. Precisely now, when he found her, she had been thinking about why it was all so easy for others - Betsy, for instance (she knew of her liaison with Tushkevich, concealed from society) - while for her it was so painful? That day, owing to certain considerations, this thought was particularly painful for her. She asked him about the races. He answered