Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/812

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130
ANNA KARENINA

early dawn. The weather was fine, the calash was comfortable, the horses went merrily, and on the box, next the coachman, in place of a footman, sat the book-keeper, whom Levin had sent for the sake of greater security.

Darya Aleksandrovna dropped off to sleep, and did not wake up till they reached the place where they had to change horses. It was at the same rich muzhik's house where Levin had stopped on his way to Sviazhsky's. After she had taken tea, and talked awhile with the women about their children and with the old man about Count Vronsky, for whom he had great respect, Darya Aleksandrovna proceeded on her way about ten o'clock.

At home on account of her maternal cares she never had much time to think. Consequently now, during this four hours' journey, all the thoughts that had been so long restrained suddenly began to throng through her brain, and she passed her whole life in review as she had never before done and from every side. These thoughts were strange even to herself.

First she thought of her children, and began to worry over them, though her mother and her sister—and it was the latter on whom she chiefly relied—had promised to look after them. "If only Masha doesn't do some stupid thing, and if Grisha doesn't get kicked by the horse, and if Lili doesn't have an attack of indigestion," she said to herself.

Then questions of the present moment began to mingle with questions of the immediate future. She began to consider how she must make changes in her rooms when she returned to Moscow, she must refurnish her drawing-room; her eldest daughter would need a shuba for winter. Then came questions of a still more distant future. How should she best continue the children's education?

"The girls can be easily managed," she said to herself, "but the boys? It is well that I am able to look after Grisha, but it comes from the fact that I am free just now, with no baby in prospect. Of course there's no