Part Seven: Chapter 31

by Leo Tolstoy

　　A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the sametime careful of the impression they were making, hurried by.Pyotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and top-boots, withhis dull, animal face, and came up to her to take her to thetrain. Some noisy men were quiet as she passed them on theplatform, and one whispered something about her to another--something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high step, andsat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty seat that had beenwhite. Her bag lay beside her, shaken up and down by thespringiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Pyotr raised hishat, with its colored band, at the window, in token of farewell;an impudent conductor slammed the door and the latch. Agrotesque-looking lady wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressedthe woman, and was appalled at her hideousness), and a littlegirl laughing affectedly ran down the platform.

　　"Katerina Andreevna, she's got them all, ma tante!" cried thegirl.

　　"Even the child's hideous and affected," thought Anna. To avoidseeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated herself at theopposite window of the empty carriage. A misshapen-lookingpeasant covered with dirt, in a cap from which his tangled hairstuck out all round, passed by that window, stooping down to thecarriage wheels. "There's something familiar about that hideouspeasant," thought Anna. And remembering her dream, she movedaway to the opposite door, shaking with terror. The conductoropened 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-passengersdid not notice under her veil her panic-stricken face. She wentback to her corner and sat down. The couple seated themselves onthe opposite side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinizedher clothes. Both husband and wife seemed repulsive to Anna.The husband asked, would she allow him to smoke, obviously notwith a view to smoking but to getting into conversation with her.Receiving her assent, he said to his wife in French somethingabout caring less to smoke than to talk. They made inane andaffected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit. Annasaw clearly that they were sick of each other, and hated eachother. And no one could have helped hating such miserablemonstrosities.

　　A second bell sounded, and was followed by moving of luggage,noise, shouting and laughter. It was so clear to Anna that therewas nothing for anyone to be glad of, that this laughterirritated her agonizingly, and she would have liked to stop upher ears not to hear it. At last the third bell rang, there wasa whistle and a hiss of steam, and a clank of chains, and the manin her carriage crossed himself. "It would be interesting to askhim what meaning he attaches to that," thought Anna, lookingangrily at him. She looked past the lady out of the window atthe people who seemed whirling by as they ran beside the train orstood on the platform. The train, jerking at regular intervalsat the junctions of the rails, rolled by the platform, past astone wall, a signal-box, past other trains; the wheels, movingmore smoothly and evenly, resounded with a slight clang on therails. The window was lighted up by the bright evening sun, anda slight breeze fluttered the curtain. Anna forgot her fellowpassengers, and to the light swaying of the train she fell tothinking again, as she breathed the fresh air.

　　"Yes, what did I stop at? That I couldn't conceive a position inwhich life would not be a misery, that we are all created to bemiserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means ofdeceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is oneto do?"

　　"That's what reason is given man for, to escape from what worrieshim," said the lady in French, lisping affectedly, and obviouslypleased with her phrase.

　　The words seemed an answer to Anna's thoughts.

　　"To escape from what worries him," repeated Anna. And glancingat the red-checked husband and the thin wife, she saw that thesickly wife considered herself misunderstood, and the husbanddeceived her and encouraged her in that idea of herself. Annaseemed to see all their history and all the crannies of theirsouls, as it were turning a light upon them. But there wasnothing interesting in them, and she pursued her thought.

　　"Yes, I'm very much worried, and that's what reason was given mefor, to escape; so then one must escape: why not put out thelight when there's nothing more to look at, when it's sickeningto look at it all? But how? Why did the conductor run along thefootboard, why are they shrieking, those young men in that train?why are they talking, why are they laughing? It's all falsehood,all lying, all humbug, all cruelty!..."

　　When the train came into the station, Anna got out into the crowdof passengers, and moving apart from them as if they were lepers,she stood on the platform, trying to think what she had come herefor, and what she meant to do. Everything that had seemed to herpossible before was now so difficult to consider, especially inthis noisy crowd of hideous people who would not leave her alone.One moment porters ran up to her proffering their services, thenyoung men, clacking their heels on the planks of the platform andtalking loudly, stared at her; people meeting her dodged past onthe wrong side. Remembering that she had meant to go on furtherif there were no answer, she stopped a porter and asked if hercoachman were not here with a note from Count Vronsky.

　　"Count Vronsky? They sent up here from the Vronskys just thisminute, to meet Princess Sorokina and her daughter. And what isthe coachman like?"

　　Just as she was talking to the porter, the coachman Mihail, redand cheerful in his smart blue coat and chain, evidently proud ofhaving so successfully performed his commission, came up to herand gave her a letter. She broke it open, and her heart achedbefore she had read it.

　　"I am very sorry your note did not reach me. I will be home atten," Vronsky had written carelessly....

　　"Yes, that's what I expected!" she said to herself with an evilsmile.

　　"Very good, you can go home then," she said softly, addressingMihail. She spoke softly because the rapidity of her heart'sbeating hindered her breathing. "No, I won't let you make memiserable," she thought menacingly, addressing not him, notherself, but the power that made her suffer, and she walked alongthe platform.

　　Two maidservants walking along the platform turned their heads,staring at her and making some remarks about her dress. "Real,"they said of the lace she was wearing. The young men would notleave her in peace. Again they passed by, peering into her face,and with a laugh shouting something in an unnatural voice. Thestation-master coming up asked her whether she was going bytrain. A boy selling kvas never took his eyes off her. "My God!where am I to go?" she thought, going farther and farther alongthe platform. At the end she stopped. Some ladies and children,who had come to meet a gentleman in spectacles, paused in theirloud laughter and talking, and stared at her as she reached them.She quickened her pace and walked away from them to the edge ofthe platform. A luggage train was coming in. The platform beganto sway, and she fancied she was in the train again.

　　And all at once she thought of the man crushed by the train theday she had first met Vronsky, and she knew what she had to do.With a rapid, light step she went down the steps that led fromthe tank to the rails and stopped quite near the approachingtrain.

　　She looked at the lower part of the carriages, at the screws andchains and the tall cast-iron wheel of the first carriage slowlymoving up, and trying to measure the middle between the front andback wheels, and the very minute when that middle point would beopposite her.

　　"There," she said to herself, looking into the shadow of thecarriage, at the sand and coal dust which covered the sleepers--"there, in the very middle, and I will punish him and escapefrom everyone and from myself."

　　She tried to fling herself below the wheels of the first carriageas it reached her; but the red bag which she tried to drop out ofher hand delayed her, and she was too late; she missed themoment. She had to wait for the next carriage. A feeling suchas she had known when about to take the first plunge in bathingcame upon her, and she crossed herself. That familiar gesturebrought back into her soul a whole series of girlish and childishmemories, and suddenly the darkness that had covered everythingfor her was torn apart, and life rose up before her for aninstant with all its bright past joys. But she did not take hereyes from the wheels of the second carriage. And exactly at themoment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, shedropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into hershoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and lightly, asthough she would rise again at once, dropped on to her knees.And at the same instant she was terror-stricken at what she wasdoing. "Where am I? What am I doing? What for?" she tried toget up, to drop backwards; but something huge and mercilessstruck her on the head and rolled her on her back. "Lord,forgive me all!" she said, feeling it impossible to struggle. Apeasant muttering something was working at the iron above her.And the light by which she had read the book filled withtroubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightlythan ever before, lighted up for her all that had been indarkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.