good enough to wait a moment? I will go and see." And, opening the high door, he disappeared.
Anna stopped and waited.
"He has just waked up," said the Swiss, coming back through the same door.
And, as he spoke, Anna heard the sound of a child yawning, and merely by the sound of the yawn she recognized her son and seemed to see him alive before her.
"Let me go in.... let me!" she cried, and hurriedly pushed through the door.
At the right of the door stood the bed, and on the bed a child was sitting up in his little open night-gown; his little body was leaning forward, and he was just finishing a yawn and stretching himself. His lips were just closing into a sleepy smile, and, with this smile, he slowly and gently fell back on his pillow.
"Serozha!" she whispered, as she went noiselessly toward him.
At the time of their separation and during that access of love which she had been recently experiencing for him, Anna had imagined him as still a boy of four, the age when he had been most charming. Now he no longer bore any resemblance to him whom she had left; he was still further removed from the four-year-old ideal; he had grown taller and thinner. How long his face seemed! How short his hair! What long arms! How he had changed since she had seen him last! But it was still Serozha—the shape of his head, his lips, his little slender neck, and his broad little shoulders.
"Serozha!" she whispered in the child's ear.
He raised himself on his elbow, turned his disheveled head first to this side, then to that, as if searching for something, and opened his eyes. For several seconds he looked with an inquiring face at his mother, who stood motionless before him. Then he suddenly smiled with joy, and again closing his sleepy eyes he threw himself, not back upon his pillow, but into his mother's arms.
"Serozha, my dear little boy!"[1] she cried, choking
- ↑ Serozha! mal'chik moï milui.
