‘No, sir. The mistress is at home. Use the porch if you please; there are people there, they’ll open the door,’ replied the gardener.
‘No, I’ll go through the garden.’
Having made sure that she was alone and wishing to take her unawares, because he had not promised to come that day and she probably did not think that he would come before the race, he walked towards the terrace that looked out on the garden, holding his sword and stepping carefully over the sand of the flower-lined path. Vronsky now forgot everything he had thought on the way about the difficulty and painfulness of his position. He thought of only one thing, that he was about to see her, not just in imagination, but alive, all of her, as she was in reality. He was already going up the low steps of the terrace, placing his whole foot on each step to avoid making noise, when he suddenly remembered something that he always forgot and that constituted the most painful side of his relations with her - her son, with his questioning and, as it seemed to him, hostile look.
This boy was a more frequent hindrance to their relations than anyone else. When he was there, not only would neither Vronsky nor Anna allow themselves to speak of something they could not repeat in front of everyone, but they would not allow themselves to say even in hints anything that the boy would not understand. They did not arrange it that way, but it got established by itself. They would have considered it insulting to themselves to deceive this child. In his presence they spoke to each other as acquaintances. But in spite of this precaution, Vronsky often saw the attentive and perplexed look of the child directed at him, and the strange timidity, the unevenness - now affectionate, now cold and shy - in the boy’s attitude towards him. As if the child felt that between this man and his mother there was some important relation the meaning of which he could not understand.
Indeed, the boy did feel that he could not understand this relation, and he tried but was unable to make out what feeling he ought to have for this man. With a child’s sensitivity to any show of feelings, he saw clearly that his father, his governess, his nanny-all of them not only disliked Vronsky, but looked at him with disgust and fear, though they never said anything about him, while his mother looked at him as at a best friend.
‘What does it mean? Who is he? How should I love him? If I don’t understand, I’m to blame, or else I’m stupid, or a bad boy,’ the child thought; and this led to his probing, questioning, partly inimical expression, and to his timidity and unevenness, which so embarrassed Vronsky. The child’s presence always and inevitably provoked in Vronsky that strange feeling of groundless loathing he had been experiencing lately. It provoked in Vronsky and Anna a feeling like that of a mariner who can see by his compass that the direction in which he is swiftly moving diverges widely from his proper course, but that he is powerless to stop the movement which every moment takes him further and further from the right direction, and that to admit the deviation to himself is the same as admitting disaster.
This child with his naive outlook on life was the compass which showed them the degree of their departure from what they knew but did not want to know.
This time Seryozha was not at home, and she was quite alone, sitting on the terrace, waiting for the return of her son, who had gone for a walk and had been caught in the rain. She had sent a man and a maid to look for him and sat waiting. Wearing a white dress with wide embroidery, she was sitting in a corner of the terrace behind some flowers and did not hear him. Her dark, curly head bowed, she leaned her forehead to the cold watering can that stood on the parapet, and her two beautiful hands with their so-familiar rings held the watering can in place. The beauty of her whole figure, her head, neck, and arms, struck Vronsky each time as something unexpected. He stood gazing at her in admiration. But as soon as he wanted to take a step to approach her, she felt his approach, pushed the watering can away, and turned her flushed face to him.
‘What’s the matter? You’re unwell?’ he said in French, going up to her. He wanted to run to her, but remembering that other people might be there, he glanced back at the balcony door and blushed as he did each time he felt he had to be afraid and look around.
‘No, I’m well,’ she said, getting up and firmly pressing the hand he held out. ‘I didn’t expect ... you.’
‘My God, what cold hands!’ he said.
‘You frightened me,’ she said. ‘I’m alone and waiting for Seryozha. He went for a walk, they’ll come from that way.’
But, despite all her efforts to be calm, her lips were trembling.
‘Forgive me for coming, but I couldn’t let the day pass without seeing you,’ he went on in French, as he always did, avoiding the impossible coldness of formal Russian and the danger of the informal.
‘What is there to forgive? I’m so glad!’
