Anna Karenina (Literature Classics Series) - Leo Tolstoy

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vainly trying to give a severe expression to her face, into which he was gazing eagerly. She took hold of the cold handrail, ascended the steps, and quickly entered the little lobby leading into the carriage. But in that little lobby she stopped, going over in her imagination what had just taken place. Though she could remember neither his nor her own words, she instinctively felt that that momentary conversation had drawn them terribly near to one another, and this both frightened her and made her happy. After standing still for a few seconds she went into the carriage and sat down. The overwrought condition which tormented her before not only returned again, but grew worse and reached such a degree that she feared every moment that something within her would give way under the intolerable strain. She did not sleep at all that night, but the strain and the visions which filled her imagination had nothing unpleasant or dismal about them; on the contrary they seemed joyful, glowing, and stimulating. Toward morning Anna, while still sitting up, fell into a doze; when she woke it was already light and the train was approaching Petersburg. At once thoughts of home, her husband, her son, and the cares of the coming day and of those that would follow, beset her.

      When the train stopped at the Petersburg terminus and she got out, the first face she noticed was that of her husband.

      ‘Great heavens! What has happened to his ears?’ she thought, gazing at his cold and commanding figure, and especially at the gristly ears which now so struck her, pressing as they did against the rim of his hat. When he saw her, he came toward her with his customary ironical smile and looked straight at her with his large tired eyes. An unpleasant feeling weighed on her heart when she felt his fixed and weary gaze, as if she had expected to find him different. She was particularly struck by the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself which she experienced when she met him. It was that ordinary well-known feeling, as if she were dissembling, which she experienced in regard to her husband; but formerly she had not noticed it, while now she was clearly and painfully conscious of it.

      ‘Yes, as you see. Here is a devoted husband; devoted as in the first year of married life, — consumed by desire to see you,’ said he in his slow, high-pitched voice and in the tone in which he always addressed her, a tone which ridiculed those who could use such words in earnest.

      ‘Is Serezha well?’ she asked.

      ‘And is this all the reward I get,’ he said, ‘for my ardour? He is quite well, quite well… .’

      Chapter 31

       Table of Contents

      VRONSKY did not even try to sleep that night. He sat in his place, his eyes staring straight before him, not observing the people who went in or out; and if previously his appearance of imperturbable calm had struck and annoyed those who did not know him, he now seemed to them even prouder and more self-confident. He looked at people as if they were inanimate things. A nervous young man, a Law Court official, who sat opposite, hated him for that look. The young man repeatedly lit his cigarette at Vronsky’s, talked to him, and even jostled him to prove that he was not a thing but a man; yet Vronsky still looked at him as at a street lamp, and the young man made grimaces, feeling that he was losing self-control under the stress of this refusal to regard him as human.

      Vronsky neither saw nor heard anyone. He felt himself a king, not because he believed that he had made an impression on Anna — he did not yet believe that — but because the impression she had made on him filled him with happiness and pride.

      What would come of it all he did not know and did not even consider. He felt that all his powers, hitherto dissipated and scattered, were now concentrated and directed with terrible energy toward one blissful aim. This made him happy. He knew only that he had told her the truth: that he would go where she went, that all the happiness of life and the only meaning of life for him now was in seeing and hearing her. When he had got out of the train at Bologoe station to drink a glass of seltzer water and had seen Anna, he had involuntarily at once told her just what he was thinking about it. He was glad he had said it to her, and that she now knew it and was thinking about it. He did not sleep at all that night. When he returned to the train, he kept recalling all the positions in which he had seen her, and all her words; and in his imagination, causing his heart to stand still, floated pictures of a possible future.

      When he got out of the train at Petersburg he felt, despite his sleepless night, as fresh and animated as after a cold bath. He stopped outside the carriage, waiting till she appeared. ‘I shall see her again,’ he thought and smiled involuntarily. ‘I shall see her walk, her face … she will say something, turn her head, look at me, perhaps even smile.’ But before seeing her he saw her husband, whom the station-master was respectfully conducting through the crowd. ‘Dear me! the husband!’ Only now did Vronsky for the first time clearly realize that the husband was connected with her. He knew she had a husband, but had not believed in his existence, and only fully believed in him when he saw him there: his head and shoulders, and the black trousers containing his legs, and especially when he saw that husband with an air of ownership quietly take her hand.

      When he saw Karenin, with his fresh Petersburg face, his sternly self-confident figure, his round hat and his slightly rounded back, Vronsky believed in his existence, and had such a disagreeable sensation as a man tortured by thirst might feel on reaching a spring and finding a dog, sheep, or pig in it, drinking the water and making it muddy. Karenin’s gait, the swinging of his thighs, and his wide short feet, particularly offended Vronsky, who acknowledged only his own unquestionable right to love Anna. But she was still the same, and the sight of her still affected him physically, exhilarating and stimulating him and filling him with joy. He ordered his German valet, who had run up from a second-class carriage, to get his luggage and take it home, and he himself went up to her. He saw the husband and wife meet, and with the penetration of a lover he noticed the signs of slight embarrassment when she spoke to her husband.

      ‘No, she doesn’t and can’t love him,’ he decided mentally.

      While he was approaching her from behind he observed with joy that she became aware of his approach and was about to turn but, on recognizing him, again addressed her husband.

      ‘Did you have a good night?’ he inquired, bowing toward them both, and leaving it to Karenin to take the greeting as meant for herself and to recognize him, or not, as he pleased.

      ‘Yes, quite comfortable, thank you,’ she replied.

      Her face seemed tired and had none of that play which showed now in a smile and now in the animation of her eyes; but just for an instant as she looked at him he saw a gleam in her eyes and, though the spark was at once extinguished, that one instant made him happy. She glanced at her husband to see whether he knew Vronsky. Karenin looked at him with displeasure, absently trying to recall who he might be. Vronsky’s calm self-confidence struck like a scythe on a stone against the cold self-confidence of Karenin.

      ‘Count Vronsky,’ said Anna.

      ‘Ah! I believe we have met before,’ said Karenin, extending his hand with indifference. ‘You travelled there with the mother and came back with the son,’ he said, uttering every word distinctly as though it were something valuable he was giving away. ‘I suppose you are returning from furlough?’ he remarked; and without waiting for an answer said to his wife in his playful manner: ‘Well, were many tears shed in Moscow over the parting?’

      By addressing himself thus to his wife he conveyed to Vronsky his wish to be alone with her, and turning to Vronsky he touched his hat. But Vronsky, addressing Anna, said: ‘I hope to have the honour of calling on you.’ Karenin glanced at him with his weary eyes. ‘I shall be very pleased,’ he said coldly. ‘We are at home on Mondays.’ Then having finally dismissed Vronsky he said to his wife in his usual bantering tone: ‘What a good thing it was that I had just half an hour to spare to meet you and was able to show my devotion!’

      ‘You insist too much on your devotion, for me to value it greatly,’ she replied in the same playful tone, while she involuntarily listened to the sound of Vronsky’s footsteps following them. ‘But what does he matter to me?’ she asked herself, and

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