‘All the same, I don’t agree with you,’ said the lady’s voice.
‘That’s a Petersburg view, madam.’
‘Not a Petersburg view, just a woman’s view,’ she replied.
‘Well, allow me to kiss your hand.’
‘Goodbye, Ivan Petrovich. Have a look, will you, and see if my brother is here, and send him to me,’ said the lady just outside the door, then she came back into the compartment.
‘So, have you found your brother?’ asked Countess Vronskaya, turning to the lady.
Vronsky remembered now that this was Madame Karenina.
‘Your brother is here,’ he said, getting up. ‘Excuse me, I did not recognize you, and our acquaintance was also so brief,’ said Vronsky, bowing, ‘that you’re bound not to remember me.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I would have recognized you, because your mother and I seem to have spent the entire journey talking only about you,’ she said, finally allowing the exuberance clamouring to be let out express itself in a smile. ‘But my brother still isn’t here.’
‘Go and call him, Alyosha,’ said the old Countess.
Vronsky went out on to the platform and shouted:
‘Oblonsky! Here!’
But Madame Karenina did not wait for her brother; instead, when she caught sight of him, she left the carriage with a decisive, light step. And as soon as her brother came up to her, she encircled his neck with her left arm in a movement which astonished Vronsky by its decisiveness and grace, quickly drew him to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky looked at her without lowering his gaze and smiled without knowing why. But then he remembered that his mother was waiting for him, and he went back into the carriage.
‘Very nice, isn’t she?’ the Countess said about Anna Karenina. ‘Her husband seated her next to me, and I was very glad. We talked for the whole journey. Well now, you, I hear … vous filez le parfait amour. Tant mieux, mon cher, tant mieux.’1
‘I do not know to what you are referring, Maman,’ her son replied crisply.
‘Well, Maman, let’s go.’
Madame Karenina came back into the carriage to say goodbye to the Countess.
‘Well, there we are, Countess, you have met your son and I’ve met my brother,’ she said merrily. ‘And I’ve run out of stories; there wouldn’t have been anything else to tell you.’
‘Oh no, my dear,’ said the Countess, taking her by the hand. ‘I could travel the world with you and not be bored. You are one of those delightful women with whom it is a pleasure to talk and also be silent. And please don’t worry about your son; it’s impossible for you never to be separated from him.’
Anna Karenina stood motionless, holding herself ramrod straight, her eyes smiling.
‘Anna Arkadyevna has a little boy of about eight, I believe,’ said the Countess, explaining to her son, ‘and she has never been separated from him and keeps agonizing about having left him.’
‘Yes, the Countess and I talked the whole time, I about my son and she about hers,’ said Anna Karenina, and again a smile lit up her face, a gentle smile directed at him.
‘That must have been very boring for you,’ he said, deftly catching this ball of flirtation she had thrown to him straight away. But she evidently did not want to continue the conversation in this tone, and turned to the old Countess.
‘Thank you so much. I did not even notice the time going by yesterday. Goodbye, Countess.’
‘Goodbye my dear,’ answered the Countess. ‘Let me kiss your pretty little face. Since I’m an old woman I can be frank and tell you that I have become quite smitten with you.’
However trite this phrase was, it was clear Anna Karenina sincerely believed it, and was pleased by it. She blushed, leant over slightly, offered her face to the Countess’s lips, straightened up again, and, with the same smile hovering between her lips and her eyes, held out her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the small hand offered to him, and savoured as something special the vigorous grip with which she boldly and firmly shook his hand. She went out with a rapid step which bore her rather full frame with a strange lightness.
‘Very nice,’ said the old lady.
Her son thought the same. He followed her with his eyes until her graceful figure disappeared from view, and a smile remained on his face. Through the window he saw her go up to her brother, place her hand on his arm, and start talking to him animatedly about something which clearly had nothing to do with him, Vronsky, and he found that irksome.
‘So, Maman, you are completely well?’ he repeated, turning to his mother.
‘I’m fine, perfectly well. Alexandre was very sweet. And Marie has become very pretty. She is very interesting.’
And she began telling him again about what most interested her, about her grandson’s christening, the reason for her journey to Petersburg, and the special favour the Tsar had showed to her eldest son.
‘Here’s Lavrenty,’ said Vronsky, looking through the window. ‘Now let’s go, if you don’t mind.’
The old butler who had travelled with the Countess appeared in the carriage to announce that everything was ready, and the Countess stood up in order to leave.
‘Let’s go, it’s not crowded now,’ said Vronsky.
The maid took her handbag and little dog, and the butler and a porter took care of the other bags. Vronsky took his mother’s arm; but just as they were getting out of the carriage, several people with frightened faces suddenly ran past. The station-master in his unusually coloured cap also ran past. Clearly something unusual had happened. The people from the train were rushing back.
‘What? … What? … Where? … Threw himself! … Crushed! …’ could be heard amongst the people going past.
Stepan Arkadyich, with his sister on his arm, had also turned back, and with frightened faces they stopped by the door of the carriage to avoid the crowd.
The ladies got into the carriage, while Vronsky and Stepan Arkadyich followed the crowd in order to obtain details of the accident.
A watchman, who was either drunk or wrapped up too tightly against the freezing cold, had not heard the train being shunted backwards and had been crushed.
The ladies had found out these details from the butler before Vronsky and Oblonsky had even returned.
Oblonsky and Vronsky had both seen the mutilated corpse. Oblonsky was clearly very upset. His face had creased up and he seemed to be on the verge of tears.
‘Oh, what an awful thing! Oh Anna, if you had seen it! Oh, what an awful thing!’ he said.
Vronsky was silent, and his handsome face was serious but completely unruffled.
‘Oh, if you had 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 only person feeding an enormous family. What a nightmare!’
‘Couldn’t we do something for her?’ said Karenina in an agitated whisper.
Vronsky glanced at her and immediately left the carriage.
‘I’ll be back shortly, Maman,’ he added, turning round at the door.
When he returned a few minutes later, Stepan Arkadyich was already talking to the Countess about a new singer, while the Countess kept glancing impatiently at the door, waiting for her son.
‘Let’s go now,’ said Vronsky as he arrived. They left together. Vronsky went ahead with his mother. Karenina followed with her brother. Having chased after Vronsky, the station-master came up to him at the exit.
‘You gave my assistant two hundred roubles. Would you be so kind as to indicate for whom this sum is intended?’
‘The widow,’ said Vronsky, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I don’t see the need to ask.’
‘You gave that?’ Oblonsky shouted out from behind, and, squeezing his sister’s hand, he added: ‘That’s so nice of him, it really is! He’s a wonderful fellow, don’t you think? My respects, Countess.’