Vronsky looked at Levin and Countess Nordston, and
smiled.
‘Are you always in the country?’ he inquired. ‘I should
think it must be dull in the winter.’
‘It’s not dull if one has work to do; besides, one’s not
dull by oneself,’ Levin replied abruptly.
‘I am fond of the country,’ said Vronsky, noticing, and
affecting not to notice, Levin’s tone.
‘But I hope, count, you would not consent to live in
the country always,’ said Countess Nordston.
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‘I don’t know; I have never tried for long. I experience
a queer feeling once,’ he went on. ‘I never longed so for
the country, Russian country, with bast shoes and
peasants, as when I was spending a winter with my mother
in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And
indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short
time. And it’s just there that Russia comes back to me
most vividly, and especially the country. It’s as though..’
He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning
his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying
obviously just what came into his head.
Noticing that Countess Nordston wanted to say
something, he stopped short without finishing what he
had begun, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the
princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject
should be lacking, two heavy guns—the relative
advantages of classical and of modern education, and
universal military service—had not to move out either of
them, while Countess Nordston had not a chance of
chaffing Levin.
Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the
general conversation; saying to himself every instant,
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‘Now go,’ he still did not go, as though waiting for
something.
The conversation fell upon table-turning and spirits,
and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism,
began to describe the marvels she had seen.
‘Ah, countess, you really must take me, for pity’s sake
do take me to see them! I have never seen anything
extraordinary, though I am always on the lookout for it
everywhere,’ said Vronsky, smiling.
‘Very well, next Saturday,’ answered Countess
Nordston. ‘But you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, do you
believe in it?’ she asked Levin.
‘Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say.’
‘But I want to hear your opinion.’
‘My opinion,’ answered Levin, ‘is only that this tableturning
simply proves that educated society—so called—is
no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye,
and in witchcraft and omens, while we..’
‘Oh, then you don’t believe in it?’
‘I can’t believe in it, countess.’
‘But if I’ve seen it myself?’
‘The peasant women too tell us they have seen
goblins.’
‘Then you think I tell a lie?’
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And she laughed a mirthless laugh.
‘Oh, no, Masha, Konstantin Dmitrievitch said he could
not believe in it,’ said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin
saw this, and, still more exasperated, would have
answered, but Vronsky with his bright frank smile rushed
to the support of the conversation, which was threatening
to become disagreeable.
‘You do not admit the conceivability at all?’ he
queried. ‘But why not? We admit the existence of
electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there
not be some new force, still unknown to us, which..’
‘When electricity was discovered,’ Levin interrupted
hurriedly, ‘it was only the phenomenon that was
discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded
and what were its effects, and ages passed before its
applications were conceived. But the spiritualists have
begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing
to them, and have only later started saying that it is an
unknown force.’
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did
listen, obviously interested in his words.
‘Yes, but the spiritualists say we don’t know at present
what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the
conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out
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what the force consists in. Not, I don’t see why there
should not be a new force, if it..’
‘Why, because with electricity,’ Levin interrupted
again, ‘every time you rub tar against wool, a recognized
phenomenon is manifested, but in this case it does not
happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural
phenomenon.’
Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a
tone too serious for a drawing room, Vronsky made no
rejoinder, but by way of trying to change the
conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies.
‘Do let us try at once, countess,’ he said; but Levin
would finish saying what he thought.
‘I think,’ he went on, ‘that this attempt of the
spiritualists to explain their marvels as some sort of new
natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual
force, and then try to subject it to material experiment.’
Every one was waiting for him to finish, and he felt it.
‘And I think you would be a first-rate medium,’ said
Countess Nordston; ‘there’s something enthusiastic in
you.’
Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something,
reddened, and said nothing.
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‘Do let us try table-turning at once, please,’ said
Vronsky. ‘Princess, will you allow it?’
And Vronsky stood up, looking for a little table.
Kitty got up to fetch a table, and as she passed, her eyes
met Levin’s. She felt for him with her whole heart, the
more because she was pitying him for suffering of which
she was herself the cause. ‘If you can forgive me, forgive
me,’ said her eyes, ‘I am so happy.’
‘I hate them all, and you, and myself,’ his eyes
responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not
destined to escape. Just as they were arranging themselves
round the table, and Levin was on the point of retiring,
the old prince came in, and after greeting the ladies,
addressed Levin.
‘Ah!’ he began joyously. ‘Been here long, my boy? I
didn’t even know you were in town. Very glad to see
you.’ The old prince embraced Levin, and talking to him
did not observe Vronsky, who had risen, and was serenely
waiting till the prince should turn to him.
Kitty felt how distasteful her father’s warmth was to
Levin after what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly
her father responded at last to Vronsky’s bow, and how
Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, as
though trying and failing to understand how and why
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anyone could be hostilely disposed towards him, and she
flushed.
‘Prince, let us have Konstantin Dmitrievitch,’ said
Countess Nordston; ‘we want to try an experiment.’
‘What experiment? Table-turning? Well, you must
excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is
better fun to play the ring game,’ said the old prince,
looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his
suggestion. ‘There’s some sense in that, anyway.’
Vronsky looked wonderingly at the prince with his
resolute eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately
talking to Countess Nordston of the great ball that was to
come off next week.
‘I hope you will be there?’ he said to Kitty. As soon as
the old prince turned away from him, Levin went out
unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with
him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty
answering Vronsky’s inquiry about the ball.
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Chapter 15
At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her
conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt
for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had
received an OFFER. She had no doubt that she had acted
rightly. But after she had gone to bed, for a long while she
could not sleep. One impression pursued her relentlessly.
It was Levin’s face, with his scowling brows, and his kind
eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he
stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at
Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into
her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for
whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his
manly, resolute face, his noble self-possession, and the
good nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone.
She remembered the love for her of the man she loved,
and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on
the pillow, smiling with happiness. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry;
but what could I do? It’s not my fault,’ she said to herself;
but an inner voice told her something else. Whether she
felt remorse at having won Levin’s love, or at having
refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was
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poisoned by doubts. ‘Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have
pity on us; Lord, have pity on us!’ she repeated to herself,
till she fell asleep.
Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince’s little
library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the
parents on account of their favorite daughter.
‘What? I’ll tell you what!’ shouted the prince, waving
his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressinggown
round him again. ‘That you’ve no pride, no dignity;
that you’re disgracing, ruining your daughter by this
vulgar, stupid match-making!’
‘But, really, for mercy’s sake, prince, what have I
done?’ said the princess, almost crying.
She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her
daughter, had gone to the prince to say good-night as
usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of
Levin’s offer and Kitty’s refusal, still she hinted to her
husband that she fancied things were practically settled
with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon
as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the
prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to
use unseemly language.
‘What have you done? I’ll tell you what. First of all,
you’re trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all
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Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you
have evening parties, invite everyone, don’t pick out the
possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano
player, and let them dance, and not as you do things
nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick,
sick to see it, and you’ve gone on till you’ve turned the
poor wench’s head. Levin’s a thousand times the better
man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they’re turned out
by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish.
But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need
not run after anyone.’
‘But what have I done?’
‘Why, you’ve...’ The prince was crying wrathfully.
‘I know if one were to listen to you,’ interrupted the
princess, ‘we should never marry our daughter. If it’s to be
so, we’d better go into the country.’
‘Well, and we had better.’
‘But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I
don’t try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a
very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I
fancy..’
‘Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love,
and he’s no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh,
that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah!
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the ball!’ And the prince, imagining that he was
mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word.
‘And this is how we’re preparing wretchedness for Kitty;
and she’s really got the notion into her head..’
‘But what makes you suppose so?’
‘I don’t suppose; I know. We have eyes for such things,
though women-folk haven’t. I see a man who has serious
intentions, that’s Levin: and I see a peacock, like this
feather-head, who’s only amusing himself.’
‘Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your
head!..’
‘Well, you’ll remember my words, but too late, just as
with Dolly.’
‘Well, well, we won’t talk of it,’ the princess stopped
him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.
‘By all means, and good night!’
And signing each other with the cross, the husband and
wife parted with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of
their own opinion.
The princess had at first been quite certain that that
evening had settled Kitty’s future, and theat there could be
no doubt of Vronsky’s intentions, but her husband’s words
had disturbed her. And returning to her own room, in
terror before the unknown future, she, too, like Kitty,
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repeated several times in her heart, ‘Lord, have pity; Lord,
have pity; Lord, have pity.’
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Anna Karenina
124 of 1759
Chapter 16
Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother
had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had
had during her married life, and still more afterwards,
many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable
world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had
been educated in the Corps of Pages.
Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he
had at once got into the circle of wealthy Petersburg army
men. Although he did go more or less into Petersburg
society, his love affairs had always hitherto been outside it.
In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his
luxurious and coarse life at Petersburg, all the charm of
intimacy with a sweet and innocent girl of his own rank,
who cared for him. It never even entered his head that
there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At
balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant
visitor at their house. He talked to her as people
commonly do talk in society—all sorts of nonsense, but
nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special
meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that
he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she
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was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and
the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the
tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his
mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite
character, that it is courting young girls with no intention
of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil
actions common among brilliant young men such as he
was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had
discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his
discovery.
If he could have heard what her parents were saying
that evening, if he could have put himself at the point ov
view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be
unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been
greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He
could not believe that what gave such great and delicate
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.
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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,
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I’m not going. Chateau 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.
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Chapter 17
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.
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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-inlaw,
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.’
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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 yo
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,
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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.’
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‘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.
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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 he arched his chest, and his
eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.
‘Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,’ said the
smart guard, going up to Vronsky.
The guard’s words roused him, and forced him to think
of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He
did not in his heart respect his mother, and without
acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though
in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived,
and with his own education, he could not have conceived
of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree
respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient
and respectful his behavior, the less in his heart he
respected and loved her.
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Chapter 18
Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the
door of the compartment he stopped short to make room
for a lady who was getting out.
With the insight of a man of the world, from one
glance at this lady’s appearance Vronsky classified her as
belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was
getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her
once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on
account of the elegance and modest grace which were
apparent in her whole figure, but because in the
expression of her charming face, as she passed close by
him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As
he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining
gray eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested
with friendly attention on his face, as though she were
recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the
passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief
look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness
which played over her face, and flitted between the
brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It
was as though her nature were so brimming over with
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something that against her will it showed itself now in the
flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she
shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will
in the faintly perceptible smile.
Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a driedup
old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her
eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin
lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a bag,
she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and
lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.
‘You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God.’
‘You had a good journey?’ said her son, sitting down
beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman’s voice
outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he
had met at the door.
‘All the same I don’t agree with you,’ said the lady’s
voice.
‘It’s the Petersburg view, madame.’
‘Not Petersburg, but simply feminine,’ she responded.
‘Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand.’
‘Good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. And could you see if my
brother is here, and send him to me?’ said the lady in the
doorway, and stepped back again into the compartment.
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Anna Karenina
136 of 1759
‘Well, have you found your brother?’ said Countess
Vronskaya, addressing the lady.
Vronsky understood now that this was Madame
Karenina.
‘Your brother is here,’ he said, standing up. ‘Excuse
me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance
was so slight,’ said Vronsky, bowing, ‘that no doubt you
do not remember me.’
‘Oh, no,’ said she, ‘I should have known you because
your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing
but you all the way.’ As she spoke she let the eagerness
that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile.
‘And still no sign of my brother.’
‘Do call him, Alexey,’ said the old countess. Vronsky
stepped out onto the platform and shouted:
‘Oblonsky! Here!’
Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her
brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with
her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had
reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its
decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his
neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly.
Vronsky gazed, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled,
he could not have said why. But recollecting that his
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mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the
carriage.
‘She’s very sweet, isn’t she?’ said the countess of
Madame Karenina. ‘Her husband put her with me, and I
was delighted to have her. We’ve been talking all the way.
And so you, I hear...vous filez le parfait amour. Tant
mieux, mon cher, tant mieux.’
‘I don’t know what you are referring to, maman,’ he
answered coldly. ‘Come, maman, let us go.’
Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say
good-bye to the countess.
‘Well, countess, you have met your son, and I my
brother,’ she said. ‘And all my gossip is exhausted. I should
have nothing more to tell you.’
‘Oh, no,’ said the countess, taking her hand. ‘I could
go all around the world with you and never be dull. You
are one of those delightful women in whose company it’s
sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don’t fret
over your son; you can’t expect never to be parted.’
Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very
erect, and her eyes were smiling.
‘Anna Arkadyevna,’ the countess said in explanation to
her son, ‘has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she
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has never been parted from him before, and she keeps
fretting over leaving him.’
‘Yes, the countess and I have been talking all the time,
I of my son and she of hers,’ said Madame Karenina, and
again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing smile
intended for him.
‘I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,’
he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had
flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the
conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old
countess.
‘Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly.
Good-bye, countess.’
‘Good-bye, my love,’ answered the countess. ‘Let me
have a kiss of your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age,
and I tell you simply that I’ve lost my heart to you.’
Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina
obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed,
bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess’s
lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile
fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand
to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and
was delighted, as though at something special, by the
energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously
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shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step which
bore her rather fully-developed figure with such strange
lightness.
‘Very charming,’ said the countess.
That was just what her son was thinking. His eyes
followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and
then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of the
window how she went up to her brother, put her arm in
his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously
something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and
at that he felt annoyed.
‘Well, maman, are you perfectly well?’ he repeated,
turning to his mother.
‘Everything has been delightful. Alexander has been
very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She’s very
interesting.’
And she began telling him again of what interested her
most—the christening of her grandson, for which she had
been staying in Petersburg, and the special favor shown
her elder son by the Tsar.
‘Here’s Lavrenty,’ said Vronsky, looking out of the
window; ‘now we can go, if you like.’
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The old butler who had traveled with the countess,
came to the carriage to announce that everything was
ready, and the countess got up to go.
‘Come; there’s not such a crowd now,’ said Vronsky.
The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler
and a porter the other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother
his arm; but just as they were getting out of the carriage
several men ran suddenly by with panic-stricken faces.
The station-master, too, ran by in his extraordinary
colored cap. Obviously something unusual had happened.
The crowd who had left the train were running back
again.
‘What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!...
Crushed!...’ was heard among the crowd. Stepan
Arkadyevitch, with his sister on his arm, turned back.
They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door
to avoid the crowd.
The ladies go in, while Vronsky and Stepan
Arkadyevitch followed the crowd to find out details of the
disaster.
A guard, either dunk or too much muffled up in the
bitter frost, had not heard the train moving back, and had
been crushed.
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smiled.
‘Are you always in the country?’ he inquired. ‘I should
think it must be dull in the winter.’
‘It’s not dull if one has work to do; besides, one’s not
dull by oneself,’ Levin replied abruptly.
‘I am fond of the country,’ said Vronsky, noticing, and
affecting not to notice, Levin’s tone.
‘But I hope, count, you would not consent to live in
the country always,’ said Countess Nordston.
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‘I don’t know; I have never tried for long. I experience
a queer feeling once,’ he went on. ‘I never longed so for
the country, Russian country, with bast shoes and
peasants, as when I was spending a winter with my mother
in Nice. Nice itself is dull enough, you know. And
indeed, Naples and Sorrento are only pleasant for a short
time. And it’s just there that Russia comes back to me
most vividly, and especially the country. It’s as though..’
He talked on, addressing both Kitty and Levin, turning
his serene, friendly eyes from one to the other, and saying
obviously just what came into his head.
Noticing that Countess Nordston wanted to say
something, he stopped short without finishing what he
had begun, and listened attentively to her.
The conversation did not flag for an instant, so that the
princess, who always kept in reserve, in case a subject
should be lacking, two heavy guns—the relative
advantages of classical and of modern education, and
universal military service—had not to move out either of
them, while Countess Nordston had not a chance of
chaffing Levin.
Levin wanted to, and could not, take part in the
general conversation; saying to himself every instant,
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‘Now go,’ he still did not go, as though waiting for
something.
The conversation fell upon table-turning and spirits,
and Countess Nordston, who believed in spiritualism,
began to describe the marvels she had seen.
‘Ah, countess, you really must take me, for pity’s sake
do take me to see them! I have never seen anything
extraordinary, though I am always on the lookout for it
everywhere,’ said Vronsky, smiling.
‘Very well, next Saturday,’ answered Countess
Nordston. ‘But you, Konstantin Dmitrievitch, do you
believe in it?’ she asked Levin.
‘Why do you ask me? You know what I shall say.’
‘But I want to hear your opinion.’
‘My opinion,’ answered Levin, ‘is only that this tableturning
simply proves that educated society—so called—is
no higher than the peasants. They believe in the evil eye,
and in witchcraft and omens, while we..’
‘Oh, then you don’t believe in it?’
‘I can’t believe in it, countess.’
‘But if I’ve seen it myself?’
‘The peasant women too tell us they have seen
goblins.’
‘Then you think I tell a lie?’
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And she laughed a mirthless laugh.
‘Oh, no, Masha, Konstantin Dmitrievitch said he could
not believe in it,’ said Kitty, blushing for Levin, and Levin
saw this, and, still more exasperated, would have
answered, but Vronsky with his bright frank smile rushed
to the support of the conversation, which was threatening
to become disagreeable.
‘You do not admit the conceivability at all?’ he
queried. ‘But why not? We admit the existence of
electricity, of which we know nothing. Why should there
not be some new force, still unknown to us, which..’
‘When electricity was discovered,’ Levin interrupted
hurriedly, ‘it was only the phenomenon that was
discovered, and it was unknown from what it proceeded
and what were its effects, and ages passed before its
applications were conceived. But the spiritualists have
begun with tables writing for them, and spirits appearing
to them, and have only later started saying that it is an
unknown force.’
Vronsky listened attentively to Levin, as he always did
listen, obviously interested in his words.
‘Yes, but the spiritualists say we don’t know at present
what this force is, but there is a force, and these are the
conditions in which it acts. Let the scientific men find out
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what the force consists in. Not, I don’t see why there
should not be a new force, if it..’
‘Why, because with electricity,’ Levin interrupted
again, ‘every time you rub tar against wool, a recognized
phenomenon is manifested, but in this case it does not
happen every time, and so it follows it is not a natural
phenomenon.’
Feeling probably that the conversation was taking a
tone too serious for a drawing room, Vronsky made no
rejoinder, but by way of trying to change the
conversation, he smiled brightly, and turned to the ladies.
‘Do let us try at once, countess,’ he said; but Levin
would finish saying what he thought.
‘I think,’ he went on, ‘that this attempt of the
spiritualists to explain their marvels as some sort of new
natural force is most futile. They boldly talk of spiritual
force, and then try to subject it to material experiment.’
Every one was waiting for him to finish, and he felt it.
‘And I think you would be a first-rate medium,’ said
Countess Nordston; ‘there’s something enthusiastic in
you.’
Levin opened his mouth, was about to say something,
reddened, and said nothing.
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‘Do let us try table-turning at once, please,’ said
Vronsky. ‘Princess, will you allow it?’
And Vronsky stood up, looking for a little table.
Kitty got up to fetch a table, and as she passed, her eyes
met Levin’s. She felt for him with her whole heart, the
more because she was pitying him for suffering of which
she was herself the cause. ‘If you can forgive me, forgive
me,’ said her eyes, ‘I am so happy.’
‘I hate them all, and you, and myself,’ his eyes
responded, and he took up his hat. But he was not
destined to escape. Just as they were arranging themselves
round the table, and Levin was on the point of retiring,
the old prince came in, and after greeting the ladies,
addressed Levin.
‘Ah!’ he began joyously. ‘Been here long, my boy? I
didn’t even know you were in town. Very glad to see
you.’ The old prince embraced Levin, and talking to him
did not observe Vronsky, who had risen, and was serenely
waiting till the prince should turn to him.
Kitty felt how distasteful her father’s warmth was to
Levin after what had happened. She saw, too, how coldly
her father responded at last to Vronsky’s bow, and how
Vronsky looked with amiable perplexity at her father, as
though trying and failing to understand how and why
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anyone could be hostilely disposed towards him, and she
flushed.
‘Prince, let us have Konstantin Dmitrievitch,’ said
Countess Nordston; ‘we want to try an experiment.’
‘What experiment? Table-turning? Well, you must
excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but to my mind it is
better fun to play the ring game,’ said the old prince,
looking at Vronsky, and guessing that it had been his
suggestion. ‘There’s some sense in that, anyway.’
Vronsky looked wonderingly at the prince with his
resolute eyes, and, with a faint smile, began immediately
talking to Countess Nordston of the great ball that was to
come off next week.
‘I hope you will be there?’ he said to Kitty. As soon as
the old prince turned away from him, Levin went out
unnoticed, and the last impression he carried away with
him of that evening was the smiling, happy face of Kitty
answering Vronsky’s inquiry about the ball.
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Chapter 15
At the end of the evening Kitty told her mother of her
conversation with Levin, and in spite of all the pity she felt
for Levin, she was glad at the thought that she had
received an OFFER. She had no doubt that she had acted
rightly. But after she had gone to bed, for a long while she
could not sleep. One impression pursued her relentlessly.
It was Levin’s face, with his scowling brows, and his kind
eyes looking out in dark dejection below them, as he
stood listening to her father, and glancing at her and at
Vronsky. And she felt so sorry for him that tears came into
her eyes. But immediately she thought of the man for
whom she had given him up. She vividly recalled his
manly, resolute face, his noble self-possession, and the
good nature conspicuous in everything towards everyone.
She remembered the love for her of the man she loved,
and once more all was gladness in her soul, and she lay on
the pillow, smiling with happiness. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry;
but what could I do? It’s not my fault,’ she said to herself;
but an inner voice told her something else. Whether she
felt remorse at having won Levin’s love, or at having
refused him, she did not know. But her happiness was
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poisoned by doubts. ‘Lord, have pity on us; Lord, have
pity on us; Lord, have pity on us!’ she repeated to herself,
till she fell asleep.
Meanwhile there took place below, in the prince’s little
library, one of the scenes so often repeated between the
parents on account of their favorite daughter.
‘What? I’ll tell you what!’ shouted the prince, waving
his arms, and at once wrapping his squirrel-lined dressinggown
round him again. ‘That you’ve no pride, no dignity;
that you’re disgracing, ruining your daughter by this
vulgar, stupid match-making!’
‘But, really, for mercy’s sake, prince, what have I
done?’ said the princess, almost crying.
She, pleased and happy after her conversation with her
daughter, had gone to the prince to say good-night as
usual, and though she had no intention of telling him of
Levin’s offer and Kitty’s refusal, still she hinted to her
husband that she fancied things were practically settled
with Vronsky, and that he would declare himself so soon
as his mother arrived. And thereupon, at those words, the
prince had all at once flown into a passion, and began to
use unseemly language.
‘What have you done? I’ll tell you what. First of all,
you’re trying to catch an eligible gentleman, and all
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Moscow will be talking of it, and with good reason. If you
have evening parties, invite everyone, don’t pick out the
possible suitors. Invite all the young bucks. Engage a piano
player, and let them dance, and not as you do things
nowadays, hunting up good matches. It makes me sick,
sick to see it, and you’ve gone on till you’ve turned the
poor wench’s head. Levin’s a thousand times the better
man. As for this little Petersburg swell, they’re turned out
by machinery, all on one pattern, and all precious rubbish.
But if he were a prince of the blood, my daughter need
not run after anyone.’
‘But what have I done?’
‘Why, you’ve...’ The prince was crying wrathfully.
‘I know if one were to listen to you,’ interrupted the
princess, ‘we should never marry our daughter. If it’s to be
so, we’d better go into the country.’
‘Well, and we had better.’
‘But do wait a minute. Do I try and catch them? I
don’t try to catch them in the least. A young man, and a
very nice one, has fallen in love with her, and she, I
fancy..’
‘Oh, yes, you fancy! And how if she really is in love,
and he’s no more thinking of marriage than I am!... Oh,
that I should live to see it! Ah! spiritualism! Ah! Nice! Ah!
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the ball!’ And the prince, imagining that he was
mimicking his wife, made a mincing curtsey at each word.
‘And this is how we’re preparing wretchedness for Kitty;
and she’s really got the notion into her head..’
‘But what makes you suppose so?’
‘I don’t suppose; I know. We have eyes for such things,
though women-folk haven’t. I see a man who has serious
intentions, that’s Levin: and I see a peacock, like this
feather-head, who’s only amusing himself.’
‘Oh, well, when once you get an idea into your
head!..’
‘Well, you’ll remember my words, but too late, just as
with Dolly.’
‘Well, well, we won’t talk of it,’ the princess stopped
him, recollecting her unlucky Dolly.
‘By all means, and good night!’
And signing each other with the cross, the husband and
wife parted with a kiss, feeling that they each remained of
their own opinion.
The princess had at first been quite certain that that
evening had settled Kitty’s future, and theat there could be
no doubt of Vronsky’s intentions, but her husband’s words
had disturbed her. And returning to her own room, in
terror before the unknown future, she, too, like Kitty,
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repeated several times in her heart, ‘Lord, have pity; Lord,
have pity; Lord, have pity.’
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Anna Karenina
124 of 1759
Chapter 16
Vronsky had never had a real home life. His mother
had been in her youth a brilliant society woman, who had
had during her married life, and still more afterwards,
many love affairs notorious in the whole fashionable
world. His father he scarcely remembered, and he had
been educated in the Corps of Pages.
Leaving the school very young as a brilliant officer, he
had at once got into the circle of wealthy Petersburg army
men. Although he did go more or less into Petersburg
society, his love affairs had always hitherto been outside it.
In Moscow he had for the first time felt, after his
luxurious and coarse life at Petersburg, all the charm of
intimacy with a sweet and innocent girl of his own rank,
who cared for him. It never even entered his head that
there could be any harm in his relations with Kitty. At
balls he danced principally with her. He was a constant
visitor at their house. He talked to her as people
commonly do talk in society—all sorts of nonsense, but
nonsense to which he could not help attaching a special
meaning in her case. Although he said nothing to her that
he could not have said before everybody, he felt that she
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was becoming more and more dependent upon him, and
the more he felt this, the better he liked it, and the
tenderer was his feeling for her. He did not know that his
mode of behavior in relation to Kitty had a definite
character, that it is courting young girls with no intention
of marriage, and that such courting is one of the evil
actions common among brilliant young men such as he
was. It seemed to him that he was the first who had
discovered this pleasure, and he was enjoying his
discovery.
If he could have heard what her parents were saying
that evening, if he could have put himself at the point ov
view of the family and have heard that Kitty would be
unhappy if he did not marry her, he would have been
greatly astonished, and would not have believed it. He
could not believe that what gave such great and delicate
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.
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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,
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I’m not going. Chateau 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.
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Chapter 17
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.
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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-inlaw,
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.’
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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 yo
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,
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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.’
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‘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.
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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 he arched his chest, and his
eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.
‘Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment,’ said the
smart guard, going up to Vronsky.
The guard’s words roused him, and forced him to think
of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He
did not in his heart respect his mother, and without
acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though
in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived,
and with his own education, he could not have conceived
of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree
respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient
and respectful his behavior, the less in his heart he
respected and loved her.
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Chapter 18
Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the
door of the compartment he stopped short to make room
for a lady who was getting out.
With the insight of a man of the world, from one
glance at this lady’s appearance Vronsky classified her as
belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was
getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her
once more; not that she was very beautiful, not on
account of the elegance and modest grace which were
apparent in her whole figure, but because in the
expression of her charming face, as she passed close by
him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As
he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining
gray eyes, that looked dark from the thick lashes, rested
with friendly attention on his face, as though she were
recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the
passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief
look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness
which played over her face, and flitted between the
brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It
was as though her nature were so brimming over with
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something that against her will it showed itself now in the
flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she
shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will
in the faintly perceptible smile.
Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a driedup
old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her
eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin
lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a bag,
she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and
lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.
‘You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God.’
‘You had a good journey?’ said her son, sitting down
beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman’s voice
outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he
had met at the door.
‘All the same I don’t agree with you,’ said the lady’s
voice.
‘It’s the Petersburg view, madame.’
‘Not Petersburg, but simply feminine,’ she responded.
‘Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand.’
‘Good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. And could you see if my
brother is here, and send him to me?’ said the lady in the
doorway, and stepped back again into the compartment.
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Anna Karenina
136 of 1759
‘Well, have you found your brother?’ said Countess
Vronskaya, addressing the lady.
Vronsky understood now that this was Madame
Karenina.
‘Your brother is here,’ he said, standing up. ‘Excuse
me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance
was so slight,’ said Vronsky, bowing, ‘that no doubt you
do not remember me.’
‘Oh, no,’ said she, ‘I should have known you because
your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing
but you all the way.’ As she spoke she let the eagerness
that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile.
‘And still no sign of my brother.’
‘Do call him, Alexey,’ said the old countess. Vronsky
stepped out onto the platform and shouted:
‘Oblonsky! Here!’
Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her
brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with
her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had
reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its
decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his
neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly.
Vronsky gazed, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled,
he could not have said why. But recollecting that his
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mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the
carriage.
‘She’s very sweet, isn’t she?’ said the countess of
Madame Karenina. ‘Her husband put her with me, and I
was delighted to have her. We’ve been talking all the way.
And so you, I hear...vous filez le parfait amour. Tant
mieux, mon cher, tant mieux.’
‘I don’t know what you are referring to, maman,’ he
answered coldly. ‘Come, maman, let us go.’
Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say
good-bye to the countess.
‘Well, countess, you have met your son, and I my
brother,’ she said. ‘And all my gossip is exhausted. I should
have nothing more to tell you.’
‘Oh, no,’ said the countess, taking her hand. ‘I could
go all around the world with you and never be dull. You
are one of those delightful women in whose company it’s
sweet to be silent as well as to talk. Now please don’t fret
over your son; you can’t expect never to be parted.’
Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very
erect, and her eyes were smiling.
‘Anna Arkadyevna,’ the countess said in explanation to
her son, ‘has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she
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138 of 1759
has never been parted from him before, and she keeps
fretting over leaving him.’
‘Yes, the countess and I have been talking all the time,
I of my son and she of hers,’ said Madame Karenina, and
again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing smile
intended for him.
‘I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,’
he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had
flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the
conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old
countess.
‘Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly.
Good-bye, countess.’
‘Good-bye, my love,’ answered the countess. ‘Let me
have a kiss of your pretty face. I speak plainly, at my age,
and I tell you simply that I’ve lost my heart to you.’
Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina
obviously believed it and was delighted by it. She flushed,
bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess’s
lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile
fluttering between her lips and her eyes, she gave her hand
to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and
was delighted, as though at something special, by the
energetic squeeze with which she freely and vigorously
Anna Karenina
139 of 1759
shook his hand. She went out with the rapid step which
bore her rather fully-developed figure with such strange
lightness.
‘Very charming,’ said the countess.
That was just what her son was thinking. His eyes
followed her till her graceful figure was out of sight, and
then the smile remained on his face. He saw out of the
window how she went up to her brother, put her arm in
his, and began telling him something eagerly, obviously
something that had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and
at that he felt annoyed.
‘Well, maman, are you perfectly well?’ he repeated,
turning to his mother.
‘Everything has been delightful. Alexander has been
very good, and Marie has grown very pretty. She’s very
interesting.’
And she began telling him again of what interested her
most—the christening of her grandson, for which she had
been staying in Petersburg, and the special favor shown
her elder son by the Tsar.
‘Here’s Lavrenty,’ said Vronsky, looking out of the
window; ‘now we can go, if you like.’
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140 of 1759
The old butler who had traveled with the countess,
came to the carriage to announce that everything was
ready, and the countess got up to go.
‘Come; there’s not such a crowd now,’ said Vronsky.
The maid took a handbag and the lap dog, the butler
and a porter the other baggage. Vronsky gave his mother
his arm; but just as they were getting out of the carriage
several men ran suddenly by with panic-stricken faces.
The station-master, too, ran by in his extraordinary
colored cap. Obviously something unusual had happened.
The crowd who had left the train were running back
again.
‘What?... What?... Where?... Flung himself!...
Crushed!...’ was heard among the crowd. Stepan
Arkadyevitch, with his sister on his arm, turned back.
They too looked scared, and stopped at the carriage door
to avoid the crowd.
The ladies go in, while Vronsky and Stepan
Arkadyevitch followed the crowd to find out details of the
disaster.
A guard, either dunk or too much muffled up in the
bitter frost, had not heard the train moving back, and had
been crushed.
Anna Karenina
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