The new frocks were taken off, and orders were given for the little girls to have their blouses put on, and the boys their old jackets, and the wide droshky to be harnessed - with Brownie, to the bailiff's annoyance, again in the shafts - to drive out for mushroom picking and bathing. Aroar of delighted shrieks arose in the nursery, and never ceased till they had set off for the bathing place.
They gathered a whole basketful of mushrooms; even Lily found a birch mushroom. It had always happened before that Miss Hoole found them and pointed them out to her; but this time she found a big one quite by herself, and there was a general scream of delight; `Lily has found a mushroom!'
Then they reached the river, put the horses under the birch trees, and went to the bathing place. The coachman, Terentii, hitched the horses, who kept whisking away the horseflies, to a tree, and, treading down the grass, lay down in the shade of a birch and smoked his shag, while the never-ceasing shrieks of delight of the children floated across to him from the bathing place.
Though it was hard work to look after all the children and restrain their pranks, though it was difficult, too, to keep one's head and not mix up all the stockings, little breeches, and shoes for the different legs, and to undo and to do up again all the tapes and buttons, Darya Alexandrovna, who had always liked bathing herself, and believed it to be very good for the children, enjoyed nothing so much as bathing with all the children.
To go over all those fat little legs, pulling on their stockings, to take in her arms and dip those little naked bodies, and to hear their screams of delight and alarm, to see the breathless faces with wide-open, scared, and happy eyes of all her splashing cherubs, was a great pleasure to her.
When half the children had been dressed, some peasant women in holiday dress, out picking herbs, came up to the bathing shed and stopped shyly. Matriona Philimonovna called one of them and handed her a sheet and a shirt that had dropped into the water for her to dry them, and Darya Alexandrovna began to talk to the women. At first they laughed behind their hands and did not understand her questions, but soon they grew bolder and began to talk, winning Darya Alexandrovna's heart at once by the genuine admiration of the children that they showed.
`My, what a beauty! As white as sugar,' said one, admiring Tanechka, and shaking her head, `but thin....'
`Yes, she has been ill.'
`Lookee, they've been bathing him too,' said another, pointing to the breast baby.
`No; he's only three months old,' answered Darya Alexandrovna with pride.
`You see!'
`And have you any children?'
`I've had four; I've two living - a boy and a girl. I weaned her last carnival.'
`How old is she?'
`Why, more than one year old.'
`Why did you nurse her so long?'
`It's our custom; for three fasts....'
And the conversation became most interesting to Darya Alexandrovna.
What sort of time did she have? What was the matter with the boy? Where was her husband? Did it often happen?
Darya Alexandrovna felt disinclined to leave the peasant women, so interesting to her was their conversation, so completely identical were all their interests. What pleased her most of all was that she saw clearly what all the women admired more than anything was her having so many children, and such fine ones. The peasant women even made Darya Alexandrovna laugh, and offended the English governess, because she was the cause of the laughter she did not understand. One of the younger women kept staring at the Englishwoman, who was dressing after all the rest, and when she put on her third petticoat she could not refrain from the remark, `My, she keeps putting on and putting on, and she'll never have done!' she said, and they all went off into peals of laughter.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 3, Chapter 09[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 9 On the drive home, as Darya Alexandrovna, with all her children round her, their heads still wet from their baths, and a kerchief tied over her own head, was getting near the house, the coachman said: `There's some gentleman coming: the master of Pokrovskoe, I do believe.'
Darya Alexandrovna peeped out in front, and was delighted when she recognized in the gray hat and gray coat the familiar figure of Levin walking to meet them. She was glad to see him at any time, but at this moment she was specially glad he should see her in all her glory. No one was better able to appreciate her grandeur than Levin.
Seeing her, he found himself face to face with one of the pictures of his daydream of family life.
`You're like a hen with your brood, Darya Alexandrovna.'
`Ah, how glad I am to see you!' she said, holding out her hand to him.
`Glad to see me - but you didn't let me know. My brother's staying with me. I got a note from Stiva that you were here.'
`From Stiva?' Darya Alexandrovna asked with surprise.
`Yes; he writes that you are here, and that he thinks you might allow me to be of use to you,' said Levin, and as he said it he became suddenly embarrassed, and, stopping abruptly, he walked on in silence by the droshky, snapping off the buds of the lime trees and nibbling them.
He was embarrassed through a sense that Darya Alexandrovna would be annoyed by receiving from an outsider help that should by rights have come from her own husband. Darya Alexandrovna certainly did not like this little way of Stepan Arkadyevich's of foisting his domestic duties on others.
And she was at once aware that Levin was aware of this. It was just for this fineness of perception, for this delicacy, that Darya Alexandrovna liked Levin.
`I know, of course,' said Levin, `that this simply means that you would like to see me, and I'm exceedingly glad. Though I can fancy that, used to town housekeeping as you are, you must feel you are in the wilds here, and if there's anything wanted, I'm altogether at your disposal.'