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ficial, careless tone which, as it were, closed the door on that compart-
ment in which her deeper feelings and ideas were kept.
“Well, Anna, and how is your little girl?” asked Dolly.
“Annie?” (This was what she called her little daughter Anna.)
“Very well. She has got on wonderfully. Would you like to see her?
Come, I’ll show her to you. We had a terrible bother,” she began telling
her, “over nurses. We had an Italian wet-nurse. A good creature, but
so stupid! We wanted to get rid of her, but the baby is so used to her
that we’ve gone on keeping her still.”
“But how have you managed?...” Dolly was beginning a question
as to what name the little girl would have; but noticing a sudden frown
on Anna’s face, she changed the drift of her question.
“How did you manage? have you weaned her yet?”
But Anna had understood.
“You didn’t mean to ask that? You meant to ask about her sur-
name. Yes? That worries Alexey. She has no name—that is, she’s a
Karenina,” said Anna, dropping her eyelids till nothing could be seen
but the eyelashes meeting. “But we’ll talk about all that later,” her face
suddenly brightening. “Come, I’ll show you her. Elle est tres gentille.
She crawls now.”
In the nursery the luxury which had impressed Dolly in the whole
house struck her still more. There were little go-carts ordered from
England, and appliances for learning to walk, and a sofa after the
fashion of a billiard table, purposely constructed for crawling, and swings
and baths, all of special pattern, and modern. They were all English,
solid, and of good make, and obviously very expensive. The room was
large, and very light and lofty.
When they went in, the baby, with nothing on but her little smock
was sitting in a little elbow chair at the table, having her dinner of broth
which she was spilling all over her little chest. The baby was being fed,
and the Russian nursery maid was evidently sharing her meal. Neither
the wet-nurse nor the head nurse were there; they were in the next
room, from which came the sound of their conversation in the queer
French which was their only means of communication.
Hearing Anna’s voice, a smart, tall, English nurse with a disagree-
able face and a dissolute expression walked in at the door, hurriedly
shaking her fair curls, and immediately began to defend herself though
Anna had not found fault with her. At every word Anna said, the
English nurse said hurriedly several times, “Yes, my lady.”
The rosy baby with her black eyebrows and hair, her sturdy red
little body with tight goose-flesh skin, delighted Darya Alexandrovna
in spite of the cross expression with which she stared at the stranger.
She positively envied the baby’s healthy appearance. She was de-
lighted, too, at the baby’s crawling. Not one of her own children had
crawled like that. When the baby was put on the carpet and its little
dress tucked up behind, it was wonderfully charming. Looking round
like some little wild animal at the grown-up big people with her bright
black eyes, she smiled, unmistakably pleased at their admiring her, and
holding her legs sideways, she pressed vigorously on her arms, and
rapidly drew her whole back up after, and then made another step
forward with her little arms.
But the whole atmosphere of the nursery, and especially the En-
glish nurse, Darya Alexandrovna did not like at all. It was only on the
supposition that no good nurse would have entered so irregular a house-
hold as Anna’s that Darya Alexandrovna could explain to herself how
Anna with her insight into people could take such an unprepossessing,
disreputable-looking woman as nurse to her child.
Besides, from a few words that were dropped, Darya Alexandrovna