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Chapter 30.
Meanwhile Vassily Lukitch had not at first understood who this
lady was, and had learned from their conversation that it was no other
person than the mother who had left her husband, and whom he had
not seen, as he had entered the house after her departure. He was in
doubt whether to go in or not, or whether to communicate with Alexey
Alexandrovitch. Reflecting finally that his duty was to get Seryozha
up at the hour fixed, and that it was therefore not his business to
consider who was there, the mother or anyone else, but simply to do his
duty, he finished dressing, went to the door and opened it.
But the embraces of the mother and child, the sound of their voices,
and what they were saying, made him change his mind.
He shook his head, and with a sigh he closed the door. “I’ll wait
another ten minutes,” he said to himself, clearing his throat and wiping
away tears.
Among the servants of the household there was intense excite-
ment all this time. All had heard that their mistress had come, and that
Kapitonitch had let her in, and that she was even now in the nursery,
and that their master always went in person to the nursery at nine
o’clock, and every one fully comprehended that it was impossible for
the husband and wife to meet, and that they must prevent it. Korney,
the valet, going down to the hall porter’s room, asked who had let her in,
and how it was he had done so, and ascertaining that Kapitonitch had
admitted her and shown her up, he gave the old man a talking-to. The
hall porter was doggedly silent, but when Korney told him he ought to
be sent away, Kapitonitch darted up to him, and waving his hands in
Korney’s face, began:
“Oh yes, to be sure you’d not have let her in! After ten years’
service, and never a word but of kindness, and there you’d up and say,
‘Be off, go along, get away with you!’ Oh yes, you’re a shrewd one at
politics, I dare say! You don’t need to be taught how to swindle the
master, and to filch fur coats!”
“Soldier!” said Korney contemptuously, and he turned to the nurse
who was coming in. “Here, what do you think, Marya Efimovna: he let
her in without a word to anyone,” Korney said addressing her. “Alexey
Alexandrovitch will be down immediately—and go into the nursery!”
“A pretty business, a pretty business!” said the nurse. “You, Korney
Vassilievitch, you’d best keep him some way or other, the master, while
I’ll run and get her away somehow. A pretty business!”
When the nurse went into the nursery, Seryozha was telling his
mother how he and Nadinka had had a fall in sledging downhill, and
had turned over three times. She was listening to the sound of his
voice, watching his face and the play of expression on it, touching his
hand, but she did not follow what he was saying. She must go, she
must leave him,—this was the only thing she was thinking and feeling.
She heard the steps of Vassily Lukitch coming up to the door and
coughing; she heard, too, the steps of the nurse as she came near; but
she sat like one turned to stone, incapable of beginning to speak or to
get up.
“Mistress, darling!” began the nurse, going up to Anna and kissing
her hands and shoulders. “God has brought joy indeed to our boy on