Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

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pleasure to him, and above all to her, could be wrong. Still less could he have believed that he ought to marry.

      Marriage had never presented itself to him as a possibility. He not only disliked family life, but a family, and especially a husband was, in accordance with the views general in the bachelor world in which he lived, conceived as something alien, repellant, and, above all, ridiculous.

      But though Vronsky had not the least suspicion what the parents were saying, he felt on coming away from the Shtcherbatskys’ that the secret spiritual bond which existed between him and Kitty had grown so much stronger that evening that some step must be taken. But what step could and ought to be taken he could not imagine.

      "What is so exquisite," he thought, as he returned from the Shtcherbatskys’, carrying away with him, as he always did, a delicious feeling of purity and freshness, arising partly from the fact that he had not been smoking for a whole evening, and with it a new feeling of tenderness at her love for him—"what is so exquisite is that not a word has been said by me or by her, but we understand each other so well in this unseen language of looks and tones, that this evening more clearly than ever she told me she loves me. And how secretly, simply, and most of all, how trustfully! I feel myself better, purer. I feel that I have a heart, and that there is a great deal of good in me. Those sweet, loving eyes! When she said: ‘Indeed I do...’”

      "Well, what then? Oh, nothing. It’s good for me, and good for her." And he began wondering where to finish the evening.

      He passed in review of the places he might go to. "Club? A game of bezique, champagne with Ignatov? No, I’m not going. Château des Fleurs; there I shall find Oblonsky, songs, the cancan. No, I’m sick of it. That’s why I like the Shtcherbatskys’, that I’m growing better. I’ll go home." He went straight to his room at Dussot’s Hotel, ordered supper, and then undressed, and as soon as his head touched the pillow, fell into a sound sleep.

      Next day at eleven o’clock in the morning Vronsky drove to the station of the Petersburg railway to meet his mother, and the first person he came across on the great flight of steps was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister by the same train.

      "Ah! your excellency!" cried Oblonsky, "whom are you meeting?"

      "My mother," Vronsky responded, smiling, as everyone did who met Oblonsky. He shook hands with him, and together they ascended the steps. "She is to be here from Petersburg today."

      "I was looking out for you till two o’clock last night. Where did you go after the Shtcherbatskys’?"

      "Home," answered Vronsky. "I must own I felt so well content yesterday after the Shtcherbatskys’ that I didn’t care to go anywhere."

      "I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,

       And by his eyes I know a youth in love,"

      declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch, just as he had done before to Levin.

      Vronsky smiled with a look that seemed to say that he did not deny it, but he promptly changed the subject.

      "And whom are you meeting?" he asked.

      "I? I’ve come to meet a pretty woman," said Oblonsky.

      "You don’t say so!"

      "Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna."

      "Ah! that’s Madame Karenina," said Vronsky.

      "You know her, no doubt?"

      "I think I do. Or perhaps not ... I really am not sure," Vronsky answered heedlessly, with a vague recollection of something stiff and tedious evoked by the name Karenina.

      "But Alexey Alexandrovitch, my celebrated brother-in-law, you surely must know. All the world knows him."

      "I know him by reputation and by sight. I know that he’s clever, learned, religious somewhat.... But you know that’s not ... not in my line," said Vronsky in English.

      "Yes, he’s a very remarkable man; rather a conservative, but a splendid man," observed Stepan Arkadyevitch, "a splendid man."

      "Oh, well, so much the better for him," said Vronsky smiling. "Oh, you’ve come," he said, addressing a tall old footman of his mother’s, standing at the door; "come here."

      Besides the charm Oblonsky had in general for everyone, Vronsky had felt of late specially drawn to him by the fact that in his imagination he was associated with Kitty.

      "Well, what do you say? Shall we give a supper on Sunday for the diva?" he said to him with a smile, taking his arm.

      "Of course. I’m collecting subscriptions. Oh, did you make the acquaintance of my friend Levin?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.

      "Yes; but he left rather early."

      "He’s a capital fellow," pursued Oblonsky. "Isn’t he?"

      "I don’t know why it is," responded Vronsky, "in all Moscow people—present company of course excepted," he put in jestingly, "there’s something uncompromising. They are all on the defensive, lose their tempers, as though they all want to make one feel something..."

      "Yes, that’s true, it is so," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, laughing good-humoredly.

      "Will the train soon be in?" Vronsky asked a railway official.

      "The train’s signaled," answered the man.

      The approach of the train was more and more evident by the preparatory bustle in the station, the rush of porters, the movement of policemen and attendants, and people meeting the train. Through the frosty vapor could be seen workmen in short sheepskins and soft felt boots crossing the rails of the curving line. The hiss of the boiler could be heard on the distant rails, and the rumble of something heavy.

      "No," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, who felt a great inclination to tell Vronsky of Levin’s intentions in regard to Kitty. "No, you’ve not got a true impression of Levin. He’s a very nervous man, and is sometimes out of humor, it’s true, but then he is often very nice. He’s such a true, honest nature, and a heart of gold. But yesterday there were special reasons," pursued Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a meaning smile, totally oblivious of the genuine sympathy he had felt the day before for his friend, and feeling the same sympathy now, only for Vronsky. "Yes, there were reasons why he could not help being either particularly happy or particularly unhappy."

      Vronsky stood still and asked directly: "How so? Do you mean he made your belle-soeur an offer yesterday?"

      "Maybe," said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I fancied something of the sort yesterday. Yes, if he went away early, and was out of humor too, it must mean it.... He’s been so long in love, and I’m very sorry for him."

      "So that’s it! I should imagine, though, she might reckon on a better match," said Vronsky, drawing himself up and walking about again, "though I don’t know him, of course," he added. "Yes, that is a hateful position! That’s why most fellows prefer to have to do with Klaras. If you don’t succeed with them it only proves that you’ve not enough cash, but in this case one’s dignity’s at stake. But here’s the train."

      The engine had already whistled in the distance. A few instants later the platform was quivering, and with puffs of steam hanging low in the air from the frost, the engine rolled up, with the lever of the middle wheel rhythmically moving up and down, and the stooping figure of the engine-driver covered with frost. Behind the tender, setting the platform more and more slowly swaying, came the luggage van with a dog whining in it. At last the passenger carriages rolled in, oscillating before coming to a standstill.

      A smart guard jumped out, giving a whistle, and after him one by one the impatient passengers began to get down: an officer of the guards, holding himself erect, and looking severely about him; a nimble little merchant with a satchel, smiling gaily; a peasant with a sack over his shoulder.

      Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously

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