Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/814

 And once more she went over the undying pangs that weighed down her maternal heart in the cruel remembrance of the death of her youngest child, the nursling who died of the croup, and his funeral, and the indifference of other people as they looked at the little pink coffin, and her own heartrending grief, which none could share, as she looked for the last time on the pallid brow with the clinging curls, and the surprised half-open mouth visible for one instant ere they shut down the cover with its silver-gilt cross.

"And what is all this for? What will be the result of it all? That I never have a moment of rest, spending my days now in bearing children, now in nursing them, forever irritable, complaining, self-tormented, and tormenting others, repulsive to my husband. I shall live on, and my children will grow up wretched, ill-educated, and poor. Even now, if I had not been able to spend the summer with the Levins, I don't know how we should have got along. Of course Kostia and Kitty are so considerate that we can't feel under obligations to them; but this cannot go on so. They will be having children of their own, and then they will not be able to help us any more; even now their expenses are very heavy. What then? Papa, who has kept almost nothing for himself, won't be able to help us, will he? One thing is perfectly certain, I cannot educate my children unaided; and, if I have to have assistance, it will be humiliating. Well, let us suppose that we have good luck, if no more of the children die and I can manage to educate them. Under the most favorable circumstances they will at least turn out not to be bad. That is all that I can hope for. And to bring about so much, how much suffering, how much trouble, I must go through. ... My whole life is spoiled!"

Again she recalled what the young peasant woman had said, and again it was odious to her to remember it; but she could not help agreeing that there was a grain of coarse truth in her words.

"Is it much farther, Mikhaïla?" asked Darya Aleksandrovna of the bookkeeper, in order to check these painful thoughts.