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.’
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.’
104
Anna Karenina
‘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 unhap
105
py.’
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 carriag106
Anna Karenina
es 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.
107
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 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.
108
Anna Karenina
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.
‘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
109
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 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
110
Anna Karenina
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
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
