XXIX.

“Now, it’s all over — God be praised!” was the first thought that came to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said good-by 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 Seriozha and Alexei Alexandrovich, and my life, good and familiar, will go on in the old way.”

Still in the same anxious frame of mind in which she had been all that day, Anna took a meticulous pleasure in making herself comfortable for the journey. With her tiny, 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 the ladies in a few words, but not foreseeing any entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a small lantern, hooked it on the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper knife and an English novel. At first she could not get interested in her reading. The fuss and stir 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 blizzard raging outside, distracted her attention. And after that everything was the same and the same: the same jouncing and rattling, the same snow lashing the window, the same rapid transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the same flitting of the same faces in the half-murk, and the same voices; and then Anna began to read, and to grasp 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 grasped the sense, yet it was annoying 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 were nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps about his sickroom; if she read of a member of Parliament delivering a speech, she longed to deliver it; 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 daring — she, too, longed to be doing the same. But there was no chance of doing anything; and, her little hands toying with the smooth paper knife, she forced herself to read.

The hero of the novel was already beginning to attain his English happiness, a baronetcy, and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire to go with him to his estate, when she suddenly felt that he ought to feel ashamed, and that she was ashamed of the same thing. But what was it he was ashamed of? “What have I to be ashamed of?” she asked herself in injured surprise. She abandoned the book and sank against the back of her chair, tightly gripping the paper knife in both hands. There was nothing to be ashamed of. She went over all her Moscow recollections. All were fine, pleasant. She recalled the ball, recalled Vronsky and his enamored, submissive face; she recalled all her conduct with him — there was nothing shameful. Yet, with all that, at this very point in her reminiscences, the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some inner voice, precisely here, when she recalled Vronsky, were saying to her: “Warm, very warm — hot!” “Well, what is it?” she said to herself resolutely, shifting on her seat. “What does it mean? Am I afraid to look at this without blinking? Well, what is it? Can it be that between me and this boy-officer 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 absolutely unable to make sense of what she read. She passed the paper knife over the windowpane, then laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the unreasoning joy that all at once possessed her. She felt that her nerves, like strings, were being tautened more and more upon some kind of tightening peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and toes twitching nervously, something within stopping her breathing, while all images and sounds seemed in the swaying half-murk to strike her with extraordinary vividness. Moments of doubt were continually besetting her: was the car going forward, or back, or was it standing absolutely still? Was it really 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: is it I, or some other woman?” She was afraid of yielding to this trance — but something was drawing her into it, and, at will, she could yield to it or resist it. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off her plaid and the cape of warm dress. For a moment she regained her self-possession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in wearing a long nankeen overcoat, with a button missing from it, was the fireman, that he was looking at the thermometer, that the wind and snow had burst in after him through the door; but then everything grew confused again. . . . That peasant with the long waist took to gnawing something within the wall; the little crone started stretching her legs the whole length of the car and filled it with a black cloud; then there was a dreadful screeching and banging, as though someone were being rent into pieces; then a red blaze blinded her eyes, and, at last, everything was screened by a wall. Anna felt that she had plunged downward. Yet all this was not terrible, but joyful. The voice of a man muffled up and covered with snow shouted something in her very ear. She arose and came to, realizing that they had come to a station, and that this was the conductor. She requested Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken off, and her shawl, put them on, and went toward the door.

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

“Yes, I want to get a breath of air. It’s very hot in here.”

And she opened the door. The blizzard and the wind rushed to meet her and began to contend with her for the door. And even this seemed joyful to her. She opened the door and stepped out. This seemed to be all that the wind had been lying in wait for; it set up a gleeful whistle and was about to snatch her up and whirl her away, but she clutched the cold doorpost and, holding on to her shawl, descended to the platform and the shelter of the car. The wind had been mighty on the steps, but on the platform, in the lee of the train, there was a lull. With enjoyment she drew deep breaths of the snowy, frosty air and, standing near the car, looked about the platform and the lighted station.