Anna Karenina

ext 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-sœur 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 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.