Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/828

 were visible "However," she added, her face suddenly lighting up again, "we will talk again about all that; come, and I'll show her to you. Elle est très gentille; she is already beginning to creep."

In the nursery there was the same sumptuousness as had struck Darya Aleksandrovna throughout the rest of the house, only to an even higher degree. There were baby-coaches imported from England, and instruments for teaching children to walk, and a peculiarly arranged divan like a billiard table for creeping, bath-tubs, swings. All were new, beautiful, solid, of English make, and evidently very costly. The room was large, very high-studded, and light.

When they entered the little girl with only her shirt on was seated in an arm-chair by the table, and was eating her broth and spilling it all over her bosom. A Russian maid-servant who assisted in the nursery was helping her, and at the same time was apparently herself eating. Neither the Italian nurse nor the nursemaid was present; they were in the next room, and could be heard talking together in a strange French jargon which was the only means they had of communicating their ideas to each other.

The English maid, a tall, sprucely dressed woman with a disagreeable face and an untrustworthy expression, came into the doorway shaking her light brown curls as soon as she heard Anna's voice, and immediately began to offer her excuses, although Anna had not chidden her. At every word Anna spoke the English maid would several times repeat the phrase, "Yes, my lady."

The dark-browed, dark-haired, rosy little girl, with her strong, pretty little form, very much pleased Darya Aleksandrovna in spite of the unfriendly look with which she gazed at the stranger; her healthy appearance also pleased her, and her way of creeping. Not one of her own children had learned so early to creep. This little girl, when she was put down on the carpet and her dress was tucked up behind, was wonderfully beautiful. With her brilliant black eyes she gazed up at her elders like