Vronsky, standing beside Oblonsky, watched the carriages and the passengers, totally oblivious of his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty excited and delighted him. Unconsciously he straightened his chest, and his eyes flashed. He felt himself a conqueror.
`Countess Vronskaia is in that compartment,' said the smart guard, going up to Vronsky.
The guard's words roused him, and forced him to think of his mother and his approaching meeting with her. He did not in his heart respect his mother, and, without acknowledging it to himself, he did not love her, though in accordance with the ideas of the set in which he lived, and with his own upbringing, he could not have conceived of any behavior to his mother not in the highest degree respectful and obedient, and the more externally obedient and respectful, the less in his heart he respected and loved her.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 1, Chapter 18[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 18 Vronsky followed the guard to the carriage, and at the door of the compartment he stopped short to make room for a lady who was getting out.
With the habitual feeling of a man of the world, from one glance at this lady's appearance Vronsky classified her as belonging to the best society. He begged pardon, and was getting into the carriage, but felt he must glance at her once more; not because she was very beautiful, not because of that elegance and modest grace which were apparent in her whole figure, but because in the expression of her charming face, as she passed close by him, there was something peculiarly caressing and soft. As he looked round, she too turned her head. Her shining gray eyes, that looked dark because of her thick lashes, rested with friendly attention on his face, as though she were recognizing him, and then promptly turned away to the passing crowd, as though seeking someone. In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed animation which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips. It was as though her nature were so brimming over with something that, against her will, it showed itself now in the flash of her eyes, and now in her smile. Deliberately she shrouded the light in her eyes, but it shone against her will in her faintly perceptible smile.
Vronsky stepped into the carriage. His mother, a dried-up old lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from the seat and handing her maid a handbag, she gave her little wrinkled hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand, kissed him on the cheek.
`You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God.'
`You had a good journey?' said her son, sitting down beside her, and involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door. He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.
`All the same I don't agree with you,' said the lady's voice.
`It's the Peterburg view, madame.'
`Not Peterburg, but simply feminine,' she responded.
`Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand.'
`Good-by, Ivan Petrovich. And would you see if my brother is here, and send him to me?' said the lady in the doorway, and stepped back again into the compartment.
`Well, have you found your brother?' said Countess Vronskaia, addressing the lady.
Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina.
`Your brother is here,' he said, standing up. `Excuse me, I did not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight,' said Vronsky bowing, `that no doubt you do not remember me.'
`Oh, no,' said she, `I should have known you because your mother and I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the way.' As she spoke she let the animation that would insist on coming out show itself in her smile. `And still no sign of my brother.'
`Do call him, Aliosha,' said the old countess.
Vronsky stepped out onto the platform and shouted: `Oblonsky!
Here!'
Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but catching sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture that struck Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him warmly. Vronsky looked on, never taking his eyes from her, and smiled, he could not have said why. But recollecting that his mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage.
`She's very sweet, isn't she?' said the Countess of Madame Karenina.
`Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to have her. We've been talking all the way. And so you, I hear... vous filez le parfait amour.
Tant mieux, mon cher, tant mieux. '
`I don't know what you are referring to, maman ,' he answered coldly. `Come, maman , let us go.'
Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say good-by to the Countess.
`Well, Countess, you have met your son, and I my brother,' she said gaily. `And all my stories are exhausted; I should have nothing more to tell you.'
`Oh, no,' said the Countess, taking her hand. `I could go all around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of those delightful women in whose company it's sweet either to be silent or to chat. Now please don't fret over your son; you can't expect never to be parted.'
Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect, and her eyes were smiling.
`Anna Arkadyevna,' the Countess said in explanation to her son, `has a little son eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she keeps fretting over leaving him.'
`Yes, the Countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of hers,' said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up her face - a caressing smile intended for him.
`I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,' he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old Countess.
