Part One: Chapter 30

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The raging tempest rushed whistling between the wheels of thecarriages, about the scaffolding, and round the corner of thestation. The carriages, posts, people, everything that was to beseen was covered with snow on one side, and was getting more andmore thickly covered. For a moment there would come a lull inthe storm, but then it would swoop down again with suchonslaughts that it seemed impossible to stand against it.Meanwhile men ran to and fro, talking merrily together, theirsteps crackling on the platform as they continually opened andclosed the big doors. The bent shadow of a man glided by at herfeet, and she heard sounds of a hammer upon iron. "Hand overthat telegram!" came an angry voice out of the stormy darkness onthe other side. "This way! No. 28!" several different voicesshouted again, and muffled figures ran by covered with snow. Twogentleman with lighted cigarettes passed by her. She drew onemore deep breath of the fresh air, and had just put he hand outof her muff to take hold of the door post and get back into thecarriage, when another man in a military overcoat, quite closebeside her, stepped between her and the flickering light of thelamp post. She looked round, and the same instant recognizedVronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his cap, hebowed to her and asked, Was there anything she wanted? Could hebe of any service to her? She gazed rather a long while at himwithout answering, and, in spite of the shadow in which he wasstanding, she saw, or fancied she saw, both the expression of hisface and his eyes. It was again that expression of reverentialecstasy which had so worked upon her the day before. More thanonce she had told herself during the past few days, and againonly a few moments before, that Vronsky was for her only one ofthe hundreds of young men, forever exactly the same, that are meteverywhere, that she would never allow herself to bestow athought upon him. But now at the first instant of meeting him,she was seized by a feeling of joyful pride. She had no need toask why he had come. she knew as certainly as if he had told herthat he was here to be where she was.

　　"I didn't know you were going. What are you coming for?" shesaid, letting fall the hand with which she had grasped the doorpost. And irrepressible delight and eagerness shone in her face.

　　"What am I coming for?" he repeated, looking straight into hereyes. "You know that I have come to be where you are," he said;"I can't help it."

　　At that moment the wind, as it were, surmounting all obstacles,sent the snow flying from the carriage roofs, and clanked somesheet of iron it had torn off, while the hoarse whistle of theengine roared in front, plaintively and gloomily. All theawfulness of the storm seemed to her more splendid now. He hadsaid what her soul longed to hear, though she feared it with herreason. She made no answer, and in her face he saw conflict.

　　"Forgive me, if you dislike what I said," he said humbly.

　　He had spoken courteously, deferentially, yet so firmly, sostubbornly, that for a long while she could make no answer.

　　"It's wrong, what you say, and I beg you, if you're a good man,to forget what you've said, as I forget it," she said at last.

　　"Not one word, not one gesture of yours shall I, could I, everforget..."

　　"Enough, enough!" she cried trying assiduously to give a sternexpression to her face, into which he was gazing greedily. Andclutching at the cold door post, she clambered up the steps andgot rapidly into the corridor of the carriage. But in the littlecorridor she paused, going over in her imagination what hadhappened. Though she could not recall her own words or his, sherealized instinctively that the momentary conversation hadbrought them fearfully closer; and she was panic-stricken andblissful at it. After standing still a few seconds, she wentinto the carriage and sat down in her place. The overstrainedcondition which had tormented her before did not only come back,but was intensified, and reached such a pitch that she was afraidevery minute that something would snap within her from theexcessive tension. She did not sleep all night. But in thatnervous tension, and in the visions that filled her imagination,there was nothing disagreeable or gloomy: on the contrary therewas something blissful, glowing, and exhilarating. Towardsmorning Anna sank into a doze, sitting in her place, and when shewaked it was daylight and the train was near Petersburg. At oncethoughts of home, of husband and of son, and the details of thatday and the following came upon her.

　　At Petersburg, as soon as the train stopped and she got out, thefirst person that attracted her attention was her husband. "Oh,mercy! why do his ears look like that?" she thought, looking athis frigid and imposing figure, and especially the ears thatstruck her at the moment as propping up the brim of his roundhat. Catching sight of her, he came to meet her, his lipsfalling into their habitual sarcastic smile, and his big, tiredeyes looking straight at her. An unpleasant sensation gripped ather heart when she met his obstinate and weary glance, as thoughshe had expected to see him different. She was especially struckby the feeling of dissatisfaction with herself that sheexperienced on meeting him. That feeling was an intimate,familiar feeling, like a consciousness of hypocrisy, which sheexperienced in her relations with her husband. But hitherto shehad not taken note of the feeling, now she was clearly andpainfully aware of it.

　　"Yes, as you see, your tender spouse, as devoted as the firstyear after marriage, burned with impatience to see you," he saidin his deliberate, high-pitched voice, and in that tone which healmost always took with her, a tone of jeering at anyone whoshould say in earnest what he said.

　　"Is Seryozha quite well?" she asked.

　　"And is this all the reward," said he, "for my ardor? He's quitewell..."