Anna Karenina

‘Ah, no, my dear,’ said the countess, taking her hand, ‘I could go around the world with you and not be bored. You’re one of those sweet women with whom it’s pleasant both to talk and to be silent. And please don’t keep thinking about your son: it’s impossible for you never to be separated.’

Mme Karenina stood motionless, holding herself very straight, and her eyes were smiling.

‘Anna Arkadyevna,’ the countess said, explaining to her son, ‘has a little boy of about eight, I think, and has never been separated from him, and she keeps suffering about having left him.’

‘Yes, the countess and I spent the whole time talking - I about my son, she about hers,’ said Mme Karenina, and again a smile lit up her face, a tender smile addressed to him.

‘You were probably very bored by it,’ he said, catching at once, in mid-air, this ball of coquetry that she had thrown to him. But she evidently did not want to continue the conversation in that tone and turned to the old countess:

‘Thank you very much. I didn’t even notice how I spent the day yesterday. Good-bye, Countess.’

‘Good-bye, my friend,’ the countess replied. ‘Let me kiss your pretty little face. I’ll tell you simply, directly, like an old woman, that I’ve come to love you.’

Trite as the phrase was, Mme Karenina evidently believed it with all her heart and was glad. She blushed, bent forward slightly, offering her face to the countess’s lips, straightened up again, and with the same smile wavering between her lips and eyes, gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the small hand offered him and was glad, as of something special, of her strong and boldly energetic handshake. She went out with a quick step, which carried her rather full body with such strange lightness.

‘Very sweet,’ said the old woman.

Her son was thinking the same. He followed her with his eyes until her graceful figure disappeared, and the smile stayed on his face. Through the window he saw her go up to her brother, put her hand on his arm, and begin animatedly telling him something that obviously had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and he found that vexing.

‘Well, so, maman, are you quite well?’ he repeated, turning to his mother.

‘Everything’s fine, excellent. Alexandre was very sweet. And Marie has become very pretty. She’s very interesting.’

Again she began to talk about what interested her most - her grandson’s baptism, for which she had gone to Petersburg - and about the special favour the emperor had shown her older son.

‘And here’s Lavrenty!’ said Vronsky, looking out the window. ‘We can go now, if you like.’

The old butler, who had come with the countess, entered the carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the countess got up to leave.

‘Let’s go, there are fewer people now,’ said Vronsky.

The maid took the bag and the lapdog, the butler and a porter the other bags. Vronsky gave his mother his arm; but as they were getting out of the carriage, several men with frightened faces suddenly ran past. The stationmaster, in a peaked cap of an extraordinary colour, also ran past.

Evidently something extraordinary had happened. People who had left the train were running back.

‘What? ... What? ... Where? ... Threw himself! ... run over! ...’ could be heard among those passing by.

Stepan Arkadyich, with his sister on his arm, their faces also frightened, came back and stood by the door of the carriage, out of the crowd’s way.

The ladies got into the carriage, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyich went after the people to find out the details of the accident.

A watchman, either drunk or too bundled up because of the freezing cold, had not heard a train being shunted and had been run over.

Even before Vronsky and Oblonsky came back, the ladies had learned these details from the butler.

Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mangled corpse. Oblonsky was obviously suffering. He winced and seemed ready to cry.

‘Ah, how terrible! Ah, Anna, if you’d seen it! Ah, how terrible!’ he kept saying.

Vronsky was silent, and his handsome face was serious but perfectly calm.

‘Ah, if you’d seen it, Countess,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘And his wife is here ... It was terrible to see her ... She threw herself on the body. They say he was the sole provider for a huge family.³² It’s terrible!’

‘Can nothing be done for her?’ Mme Karenina said in an agitated whisper.

Vronsky glanced at her and at once left the carriage.

‘I’ll be right back, maman,’ he added, turning at the door.

When he came back a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyich was already talking with the countess about a new soprano, while the countess kept glancing impatiently at the door, waiting for her son.

‘Let’s go now,’ said Vronsky, entering.

They went out together. Vronsky walked ahead with his mother. Behind came Mme Karenina with her brother. At the exit, the stationmaster overtook Vronsky and came up to him.

‘You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you be so kind as to designate whom they are meant for?’