One of Anna's objects in coming back to Russia had been to see

her son. From the day she left Italy the thought of it had never

ceased to agitate her. And as she got nearer to Petersburg, the

delight and importance of this meeting grew ever greater in her

imagination. She did not even put to herself the question how to

arrange it. It seemed to her natural and simple to see her son

when she should be in the same town with him. But on her arrival

in Petersburg she was suddenly made distinctly aware of her

present position in society, and she grasped the fact that to

arrange this meeting was no easy matter.

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She had now been two days in Petersburg. The thought of her son

never left her for a single instant, but she had not yet seen

him. To go straight to the house, where she might meet Alexey

Alexandrovitch, that she felt she had no right to do. She might

be refused admittance and insulted. To write and so enter into

relations with her husband--that it made her miserable to think

of doing; she could only be at peace when she did not think of

her husband. To get a glimpse of her son out walking, finding

out where and when he went out, was not enough for her; she had

so looked forward to this meeting, she had so much she must say

to him, she so longed to embrace him, to kiss him. Seryozha's

old nurse might be a help to her and show her what to do. But

the nurse was not now living in Alexey Alexandrovitch's house.

In this uncertainty, and in efforts to find the nurse, two days

had slipped by.

Hearing of the close intimacy between Alexey Alexandrovitch and

Countess Lidia Ivanovna, Anna decided on the third day to write

to her a letter, which cost her great pains, and in which she

intentionally said that permission to see her son must depend on

her husband's generosity. She knew that if the letter were shown

to her husband, he would keep up his character of magnanimity,

and would not refuse her request.

The commissionaire who took the letter had brought her back the

most cruel and unexpected answer, that there was no answer. She

had never felt so humiliated as at the moment when, sending for

the commissionaire, she heard from him the exact account of how

he had waited, and how afterwards he had been told there was no

answer. Anna felt humiliated, insulted, but she saw that from

her point of view Countess Lidia Ivanovna was right. Her

suffering was the more poignant that she had to bear it in

solitude. She could not and would not share it with Vronsky.

She knew that to him, although he was the primary cause of her

distress, the question of her seeing her son would seem a matter

of very little consequence. She knew that he would never be

capable of understanding all the depth of her suffering, that for

his cool tone at any allusion to it she would begin to hate him.

And she dreaded that more than anything in the world, and so she

hid from him everything that related to her son. Spending the

whole day at home she considered ways of seeing her son, and had

reached a decision to write to her husband. She was just

composing this letter when she was handed the letter from Lidia

Ivanovna. The countess's silence had subdued and depressed her,

but the letter, all that she read between the lines in it, so

exasperated her, this malice was so revolting beside her

passionate, legitimate tenderness for her son, that she turned

against other people and left off blaming herself.




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