Anna Karenina

“ome, it’s all over, and thank God!” was the first thought that came
to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said good-bye for the last time to her
brother, who had stood blocking up the entrance to the carriage till
the third bell rang. She sat down on her lounge beside Annushka, and
looked about her in the twilight of the sleeping-carriage. “Thank God!
tomorrow I shall see Seryozha and Alexey Alexandrovitch, and my life
will go on in the old way, all nice and as usual.”

Still in the same anxious frame of mind, as she had been all that day,
Anna took pleasure in arranging herself for the journey with great
care. With her little deft hands she opened and shut her little red
bag, took out a cushion, laid it on her knees, and carefully wrapping
up her feet, settled herself comfortably. An invalid lady had already
lain down to sleep. Two other ladies began talking to Anna, and a stout
elderly lady tucked up her feet, and made observations about the
heating of the train. Anna answered a few words, but not foreseeing any
entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a lamp,
hooked it onto the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper-knife
and an English novel. At first her reading made no progress. The fuss
and bustle were disturbing; then when the train had started, she could
not help listening to the noises; then the snow beating on the left
window and sticking to the pane, and the sight of the muffled guard
passing by, covered with snow on one side, and the conversations about
the terrible snowstorm raging outside, distracted her attention.
Farther on, it was continually the same again and again: the same
shaking and rattling, the same snow on the window, the same rapid
transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the
same passing glimpses of the same figures in the twilight, and the same
voices, and Anna began to read and to understand what she read.
Annushka was already dozing, the red bag on her lap, clutched by her
broad hands, in gloves, of which one was torn. Anna Arkadyevna read and
understood, but it was distasteful to her to read, that is, to follow
the reflection of other people’s lives. She had too great a desire to
live herself. If she read that the heroine of the novel was nursing a
sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about the room of a
sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a speech, she
longed to be delivering the speech; if she read of how Lady Mary had
ridden after the hounds, and had provoked her sister-in-law, and had
surprised everyone by her boldness, she too wished to be doing the
same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the
smooth paper-knife in her little hands, she forced herself to read.

The hero of the novel was already almost reaching his English
happiness, a baronetcy and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire to
go with him to the estate, when she suddenly felt that he ought to
feel ashamed, and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But what had
he to be ashamed of? “What have I to be ashamed of?” she asked herself
in injured surprise. She laid down the book and sank against the back
of the chair, tightly gripping the paper-cutter in both hands. There
was nothing. She went over all her Moscow recollections. All were good,
pleasant. She remembered the ball, remembered Vronsky and his face of
slavish adoration, remembered all her conduct with him: there was
nothing shameful. And for all that, at the same point in her memories,
the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some inner voice, just
at the point when she thought of Vronsky, were saying to her, “Warm,
very warm, hot.” “Well, what is it?” she said to herself resolutely,
shifting her seat in the lounge. “What does it mean? Am I afraid to
look it straight in the face? Why, what is it? Can it be that between
me and this officer boy there exist, or can exist, any other relations
than such as are common with every acquaintance?” She laughed
contemptuously and took up her book again; but now she was definitely
unable to follow what she read. She passed the paper-knife over the
window pane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and
almost laughed aloud at the feeling of delight that all at once without
cause came over her. She felt as though her nerves were strings being
strained tighter and tighter on some sort of screwing peg. She felt her
eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously,
something within oppressing her breathing, while all shapes and sounds
seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with unaccustomed
vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when she
was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or
were standing still altogether; whether it were Annushka at her side or
a stranger. “What’s that on the arm of the chair, a fur cloak or some
beast? And what am I myself? Myself or some other woman?” She was
afraid of giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards
it, and she could yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse
herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For
a moment she regained her self-possession, and realized that the thin
peasant who had come in wearing a long overcoat, with buttons missing
from it, was the stoveheater, that he was looking at the thermometer,
that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him at the door; but
then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the long waist
seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began
stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it
with a black cloud; then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as
though someone were being torn to pieces; then there was a blinding
dazzle of red fire before her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and
hide everything. Anna felt as though she were sinking down. But it was
not terrible, but delightful. The voice of a man muffled up and covered
with snow shouted something in her ear. She got up and pulled herself
together; she realized that they had reached a station and that this
was the guard. She asked Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken
off and her shawl, put them on and moved towards the door.

“Do you wish to get out?” asked Annushka.

“Yes, I want a little air. It’s very hot in here.” And she opened the
door. The driving snow and the wind rushed to meet her and struggled
with her over the door. But she enjoyed the struggle.

She opened the door and went out. The wind seemed as though lying in
wait for her; with gleeful whistle it tried to snatch her up and bear
her off, but she clung to the cold door post, and holding her skirt got
down onto the platform and under the shelter of the carriages. The wind
had been powerful on the steps, but on the platform, under the lee of
the carriages, there was a lull. With enjoyment she drew deep breaths
of the frozen, snowy air, and standing near the carriage looked about
the platform and the lighted station.