Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [356]
In the nursery the luxury that had struck Darya Alexandrovna everywhere in the house struck her still more. Here were carriages ordered from England, and contraptions for learning to walk, and a specially designed couch, like a billiard table, for crawling, and rocking chairs and special new baths. It was all of English make, sturdy, of good quality, and obviously very expensive. The room was big, very high-ceilinged and bright.
When they came in the little girl was sitting on a chair at the table in just her shift, drinking bouillon, which she spilled all down her front. The child was being fed by a Russian maid who served in the nursery and who apparently ate with her. Neither the wet nurse nor the nanny was there; they were in the next room, where they could be heard talking in a strange French, the only language in which they could communicate with each other.
On hearing Anna’s voice, a tall, well-dressed English governess with an unpleasant face and an impure expression came through the door, hastily shaking her blond curls, and at once began justifying herself, though Anna had not accused her of anything. To Anna’s every word the governess hastily chimed ‘Yes, my lady’ several times.
Darya Alexandrovna liked the dark-browed, dark-haired, ruddy-cheeked little girl very much, with her sturdy red body and taut, goose fleshed skin, despite the stern expression with which she looked at the new person. She even envied her healthy look. She also liked very much the way the girl crawled. None of her children had crawled like that. This girl, when she was sitting on the rug with her dress tucked behind her, was very sweet. She looked at the grown-ups with shining, dark eyes, like a little animal, obviously glad to be admired; smiling and turning her legs sideways, she leaned energetically on her hands and quickly lifted her whole bottom up, then again moved her little hands forward.
But Darya Alexandrovna very much disliked the general spirit of the nursery, and the governess in particular. How Anna, with her knowledge of people, could have engaged such an unsympathetic, unrespectable governess for her child, she could explain to herself only by the fact that a good one would not have come to such an irregular family as Anna’s. Moreover, she could tell at once, from a few words, that Anna, the wet nurse, the nanny and the baby did not get on together, and that the mother’s visit was an unusual thing. Anna wanted to give her little girl a toy, but could not find it.
Most surprising of all was that, when asked how many teeth the girl had, Anna was mistaken and knew nothing about the two latest teeth.
‘It pains me sometimes that I seem so superfluous here,’ said Anna, leaving the nursery and picking up her train so as to avoid the toys lying by the door. ‘It wasn’t like that with my first.’
‘I thought the opposite,’ Darya Alexandrovna said timidly.
‘Oh, no! You know, I saw him - Seryozha,’ Anna said, narrowing her eyes as if peering at something in the distance. ‘However, we’ll talk about it later. You wouldn’t believe it, I’m like a hungry person who suddenly has a full meal put in front of her and doesn’t know where to start. The full meal is you and the conversations I’m going to have with you, which I haven’t been able to have with anybody; and I don’t know which conversation to get to first. Mais je ne vous ferai grâce de rien.bu I have to say everything. Ah, yes, I should describe for you the company you’ll find here,’ she began. ‘I’ll begin with the ladies. Princess Varvara. You know her, and I know your and Stiva’s opinion of her. Stiva says the whole aim of her life consists in proving her superiority to Aunt Katerina Pavlovna. It’s all true, but still she’s kind and I