Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [355]
XIX
Left alone, Darya Alexandrovna looked round her room with a housewifely eye. Everything she had seen while approaching the house and passing through it, and now in her own room, gave her an impression of opulence and display and that new European luxury she had only read about in English novels but had never seen in Russia, let alone in the country. Everything was new, from the new French wallpaper to the carpet that covered the entire floor. The bed had springs and a mattress, a special headboard, and little pillows with raw-silk slips. The marble washstand, the dressing table, the couch, the tables, the bronze clock on the mantelpiece, the curtains on the windows and doors - it was all expensive and new.
The smart maid who came to offer her services, her dress and coiffure more fashionable than Dolly‘s, was as new and expensive as the rest of the room. Darya Alexandrovna liked her politeness, neatness and obliging manner, but she felt ill at ease with her; she was embarrassed before her for the patched chemise which, as ill luck would have it, she had packed by mistake. She was ashamed of those very patches and mendings which she had been so proud of at home. At home it was clear that for six chemises she needed seventeen yards of nainsook at ninety kopecks a yard, which would come to over fifteen roubles, besides the work and the trimmings, and these were fifteen roubles gained. But in front of the maid she felt not so much ashamed as ill at ease.
It was a great relief for Darya Alexandrovna when her old acquaintance, Annushka, came into the room. The smart maid was needed by her mistress, and Annushka stayed with Darya Alexandrovna.
Annushka was obviously very glad of the lady’s arrival and talked incessantly. Dolly noticed that she wanted to give her opinion of her mistress’s situation, especially of the count’s love and devotion for Anna, but Dolly took care to interrupt her each time she began to speak of it.
‘I grew up with Anna Arkadyevna, she’s dearest of all to me. So it’s not for us to judge. And, you’d think, to love like that...’
‘So, please send this to be washed, if possible,’ Darya Alexandrovna interrupted her.
‘Very well, ma’am. We have two women especially for small laundry, but the linen’s all done by machine. The count sees to everything himself. What husband would ...’
Dolly was glad when Anna came in and by her arrival interrupted Annushka’s chatter.
Anna had changed into a very simple cambric dress. Dolly looked attentively at this simple dress. She knew what such simplicity meant and what money was paid for it.
‘An old acquaintance,’ Anna said of Annushka.
Anna was no longer embarrassed. She was perfectly free and calm. Dolly saw that she had now fully recovered from the impression her arrival had made on her, and had assumed that tone of superficial indifference which indicated that the door to the compartment in which she kept her feelings and innermost thoughts was locked.
‘Well, and how is your little girl, Anna?’ asked Dolly.
‘Annie?’ (So she called her daughter Anna.) ‘Quite well. She’s gained a lot of weight. Would you like to see her? Come, I’ll show her to you. There’s been terrible trouble with the nannies,’ she began to tell the story. ‘We have an Italian wet nurse. Good, but so stupid! We wanted to send her away, but the child is so used to her that we still keep her.’
‘But how did you arrange ... ?’ Dolly began to ask about what name the girl would have; but, noticing Anna’s sudden frown, she changed the sense of the question. ‘How did you arrange about weaning her?’
But Anna understood.
‘That’s not what you wanted to