Anna Karenina
were not true. She was not merely doubting herself, she felt emotion at
the thought of Vronsky, and was going away sooner than she had meant,
simply to avoid meeting him.
“Yes, Stiva told me you danced the mazurka with him, and that he....”
“You can’t imagine how absurdly it all came about. I only meant to be
matchmaking, and all at once it turned out quite differently. Possibly
against my own will....”
She crimsoned and stopped.
“Oh, they feel it directly?” said Dolly.
“But I should be in despair if there were anything serious in it on his
side,” Anna interrupted her. “And I am certain it will all be
forgotten, and Kitty will leave off hating me.”
“All the same, Anna, to tell you the truth, I’m not very anxious for
this marriage for Kitty. And it’s better it should come to nothing, if
he, Vronsky, is capable of falling in love with you in a single day.”
“Oh, heavens, that would be too silly!” said Anna, and again a deep
flush of pleasure came out on her face, when she heard the idea, that
absorbed her, put into words. “And so here I am going away, having made
an enemy of Kitty, whom I liked so much! Ah, how sweet she is! But
you’ll make it right, Dolly? Eh?”
Dolly could scarcely suppress a smile. She loved Anna, but she enjoyed
seeing that she too had her weaknesses.
“An enemy? That can’t be.”
“I did so want you all to care for me, as I do for you, and now I care
for you more than ever,” said Anna, with tears in her eyes. “Ah, how
silly I am today!”
She passed her handkerchief over her face and began dressing.
At the very moment of starting Stepan Arkadyevitch arrived, late, rosy
and good-humored, smelling of wine and cigars.
Anna’s emotionalism infected Dolly, and when she embraced her
sister-in-law for the last time, she whispered: “Remember, Anna, what
you’ve done for me—I shall never forget. And remember that I love you,
and shall always love you as my dearest friend!”
“I don’t know why,” said Anna, kissing her and hiding her tears.
“You understood me, and you understand. Good-bye, my darling!”
Chapter 29
“Come, it’s all over, and thank God!” was the first thought that came
to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said good-bye for the last time to her
brother, who had stood blocking up the entrance to the carriage till
the third bell rang. She sat down on her lounge beside Annushka, and
looked about her in the twilight of the sleeping-carriage. “Thank God!
tomorrow I shall see Seryozha and Alexey Alexandrovitch, and my life
will go on in the old way, all nice and as usual.”
Still in the same anxious frame of mind, as she had been all that day,
Anna took pleasure in arranging herself for the journey with great
care. With her little deft hands she opened and shut her little red
bag, took out a cushion, laid it on her knees, and carefully wrapping
up her feet, settled herself comfortably. An invalid lady had already
lain down to sleep. Two other ladies began talking to Anna, and a stout
elderly lady tucked up her feet, and made observations about the
heating of the train. Anna answered a few words, but not foreseeing any
entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a lamp,
hooked it onto the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper-knife
and an English novel. At first her reading made no progress. The fuss
and bustle were disturbing; then when the train had started, she could
not help listening to the noises; then the snow beating on the left
window and sticking to the pane, and the sight of the muffled guard
passing by, covered with snow on one side, and the conversations about
the terrible snowstorm raging outside, distracted her attention.
Farther on, it was continually the same again and again: the same
shaking and rattling, the same snow on the window, the same rapid
transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the
same passing glimpses of the same figures in the twilight, and the same
voices, and Anna began to read and to understand what she read.
Annushka was already dozing, the red bag on her lap, clutched by her
broad hands, in gloves, of which one was torn. Anna Arkadyevna read and
understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow
the reflection of other people’s lives. She had too great a desire to
live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a
sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a
sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she
longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had
ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had
surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the
same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the
smooth paper-knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read.
The hero of the novel was already almost reaching his English
happiness, a baronetcy and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire to
go with him to the estate, when she suddenly felt that _he_ ought to
feel ashamed, and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But what had
he to be ashamed of? “What have I to be ashamed of?” she asked herself
in injured surprise. She laid down the book and sank against the back
of the chair, tightly gripping the paper-cutter in both hands. There
was nothing. She went over all her Moscow recollections. All were good,
pleasant. She remembered the ball, remembered Vronsky and his face of
slavish adoration, remembered all her conduct with him: there was
nothing shameful. And for all that, at the same point in her memories,
the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some inner voice, just
at the point when she thought of Vronsky, were saying to her, “Warm,
very warm, hot.” “Well, what is it?” she said to herself resolutely,
shifting her seat in the lounge. “What does it mean? Am I afraid to
look it straight in the face? Why, what is it? Can it be that between
me and this officer boy there exist, or can exist, any other relations
than such as are common with every acquaintance?” She laughed
contemptuously and took up her book again; but now she was definitely
unable to follow what she read. She passed the paper-knife over the
window pane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and
almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight that all at once without
cause came over her. She felt as though her nerves were strings being
strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her
eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously,
something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds
seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with unaccustomed
vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she
was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or
were standing still altogether; whether it were Annushka at her side or
a stranger. “What’s that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some
beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman?” She was
afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards
it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse
herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For
a moment she regained her self-possession, and realized that the thin
peasant who had come in wearing a long overcoat, with buttons missing
from it, was the stoveheater, that he was looking at the thermometer,
that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him at the door; but
then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the long waist
seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began
stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it
with a black cloud; then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as
though someone were being torn to pieces; then there was a blinding
dazzle of red fire before her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and
hide everything. Anna felt as though she were sinking down. But it was
not terrible, but delightful. The voice of a man muffled up and covered
with snow shouted something in her ear. She got up and pulled herself
together; she realized that they had reached a station and that this
was the guard. She asked Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken
off and her shawl, put them on and moved towards the door.
“Do you wish to get out?” asked Annushka.
“Yes, I want a little air. It’s very hot in here.” And she opened the
door. The driving snow and the wind rushed to meet her and struggled
with her over the door. But she enjoyed the struggle.
She opened the door and went out. The wind seemed as though lying in
wait for her; with gleeful whistle it tried to snatch her up and bear
her off, but she clung to the cold door post, and holding her skirt got
down onto the platform and under the shelter of the carriages. The wind
had been powerful on the steps, but on the platform, under the lee of
the carriages, there was a lull. With enjoyment she drew deep breaths
of the frozen, snowy air, and standing near the carriage looked about
the platform and the lighted station.
Chapter 30
The raging tempest rushed whistling between the wheels of the
carriages, about the scaffolding, and round the corner of the station.
The carriages, posts, people, everything that was to be seen was
covered with snow on one side, and was getting more and more thickly
covered. For a moment there would come a lull in the storm, but then it
would swoop down again with such onslaughts that it seemed impossible
to stand against it. Meanwhile men ran to and fro, talking merrily
together, their steps crackling on the platform as they continually
opened and closed the big doors. The bent shadow of a man glided by at
her feet, and she heard sounds of a hammer upon iron. “Hand over that
telegram!” came an angry voice out of the stormy darkness on the other
side. “This way! No. 28!” several different voices shouted again, and
muffled figures ran by covered with snow. Two gentlemen with lighted
cigarettes passed by her. She drew one more deep breath of the fresh
air, and had just put her hand out of her muff to take hold of the door
post and get back into the carriage, when another man in a military
overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the
flickering light of the lamp post. She looked round, and the same
instant recognized Vronsky’s face. Putting his hand to the peak of his
cap, he bowed to her and asked, Was there anything she wanted? Could he
be of any service to her? She gazed rather a long while at him without
answering, and, in spite of the shadow in which he was standing, she
saw, or fancied she saw, both the expression of his face and his eyes.
It was again that expression of reverential ecstasy which had so worked
upon her the day before. More than once she had told herself during the
past few days, and again only a few moments before, that Vronsky was
for her only one of the hundreds of young men, forever exactly the
same, that are met everywhere, that she would never allow herself to
bestow a thought upon him. But now at the first instant of meeting him,
she was seized by a feeling of joyful pride. She had no need to ask why
he had come. She knew as certainly as if he had told her that he was
here to be where she was.
“I didn’t know you were going. What are you coming for?” she said,
letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the door post. And
irrepressible delight and eagerness shone in her face.
“What am I coming for?” he repeated, looking straight into her eyes.
“You know that I have come to be where you are,” he said; “I can’t help
it.”
At that moment the wind, as it were, surmounting all obstacles, sent
the snow flying from the carriage roofs, and clanked some sheet of iron