"Seryozha! my darling boy!" she said, breathing hard and putting her arms round his plump little body.
"Mother!" he said, wriggling about in her arms so as to touch her hands with different parts of him.
Smiling sleepily still with closed eyes, he flung fat little arms round her shoulders, rolled towards her, with the delicious sleepy warmth and fragrance that is only found in children, and began rubbing his face against her neck and shoulders.
"I know," he said, opening his eyes; "it's my birthday today.
I knew you'd come.
I'll get up directly."
And saying that he dropped asleep.
Anna looked at him hungrily; she saw how he had grown and changed in her absence.
She knew, and did not know, the bare legs so long now, that were thrust out below the quilt, those short-cropped curls on his neck in which she had so often kissed him.
She touched all this and could say nothing; tears choked her.
"What are you crying for, mother?" he said, waking completely up. "Mother, what are you crying for?" he cried in a tearful voice.
"I won't cry...I'm crying for joy.
It's so long since I've seen you.
I won't, I won't," she said, gulping down her tears and turning away. "Come, it's time for you to dress now," she added, after a pause, and, never letting go his hands, she sat down by his bedside on the chair, where his clothes were put ready for him.
"How do you dress without me?
How..." she tried to begin talking simply and cheerfully, but she could not, and again she turned away.
"I don't have a cold bath, papa didn't order it.
And you've not seen Vassily Lukitch?
He'll come in soon.
Why, you're sitting on my clothes!" And Seryozha went off into a peal of laughter.
She looked at him and smiled.
"Mother, darling, sweet one!" he shouted, flinging himself on her again and hugging her.
It was as though only now, on seeing her smile, he fully grasped what had happened. "I don't want that on," he said, taking off her hat.
And as it were, seeing her afresh without her hat, he fell to kissing her again.
"But what did you think about me?
You didn't think I was dead?"
"I never believed it."
"You didn't believe it, my sweet?"
"I knew, I knew!" he repeated his favorite phrase, and snatching the hand that was stroking his hair, he pressed the open palm to his mouth and kissed it.
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 excitement 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.