Anna Karenina - Part 7 - Page 101/103

A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same

time careful of the impression they were making, hurried by.

Pyotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and top-boots, with

his dull, animal face, and came up to her to take her to the

train. Some noisy men were quiet as she passed them on the

platform, and one whispered something about her to another--

something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high step, and

sat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty seat that had been

white. Her bag lay beside her, shaken up and down by the

springiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Pyotr raised his

hat, with its colored band, at the window, in token of farewell;

an impudent conductor slammed the door and the latch. A

grotesque-looking lady wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressed

the woman, and was appalled at her hideousness), and a little

girl laughing affectedly ran down the platform.

"Katerina Andreevna, she's got them all, _ma tante!_" cried the

girl.

"Even the child's hideous and affected," thought Anna. To avoid

seeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated herself at the

opposite window of the empty carriage. A misshapen-looking

peasant covered with dirt, in a cap from which his tangled hair

stuck out all round, passed by that window, stooping down to the

carriage wheels. "There's something familiar about that hideous

peasant," thought Anna. And remembering her dream, she moved

away to the opposite door, shaking with terror. The conductor

opened the door and let in a man and his wife.

"Do you wish to get out?"

Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellow-passengers

did not notice under her veil her panic-stricken face. She went

back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated themselves on

the opposite side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinized

her clothes. Both husband and wife seemed repulsive to Anna.

The husband asked, would she allow him to smoke, obviously not

with a view to smoking but to getting into conversation with her.

Receiving her assent, he said to his wife in French something

about caring less to smoke than to talk. They made inane and

affected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit. Anna

saw clearly that they were sick of each other, and hated each

other. And no one could have helped hating such miserable

monstrosities.

A second bell sounded, and was followed by moving of luggage,

noise, shouting and laughter. It was so clear to Anna that there

was nothing for anyone to be glad of, that this laughter

irritated her agonizingly, and she would have liked to stop up

her ears not to hear it. At last the third bell rang, there was

a whistle and a hiss of steam, and a clank of chains, and the man

in her carriage crossed himself. "It would be interesting to ask

him what meaning he attaches to that," thought Anna, looking

angrily at him. She looked past the lady out of the window at

the people who seemed whirling by as they ran beside the train or

stood on the platform. The train, jerking at regular intervals

at the junctions of the rails, rolled by the platform, past a

stone wall, a signal-box, past other trains; the wheels, moving

more smoothly and evenly, resounded with a slight clang on the

rails. The window was lighted up by the bright evening sun, and

a slight breeze fluttered the curtain. Anna forgot her fellow

passengers, and to the light swaying of the train she fell to

thinking again, as she breathed the fresh air.