<h3>Chapter 29</h3>
<p>“Come, it’s all over, and thank God!” was the first thought
that came to Anna Arkadyevna, when she had said good-bye 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 Seryozha and Alexey Alexandrovitch, and my life will go on in the old
way, all nice and as usual.”</p>
<p>Still in the same anxious frame of mind, as she had been all that day, Anna
took pleasure in arranging herself for the journey with great care. With her
little 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 a few words, but not
foreseeing any entertainment from the conversation, she asked Annushka to get a
lamp, hooked it onto the arm of her seat, and took from her bag a paper-knife
and an English novel. At first her reading made no progress. The fuss and
bustle 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 snowstorm raging outside,
distracted her attention. Farther on, it was continually the same again and
again: the same shaking and rattling, the same snow on the window, the same
rapid transitions from steaming heat to cold, and back again to heat, the same
passing glimpses of the same figures in the twilight, and the same voices, and
Anna began to read and to understand 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 understood, but it was distasteful
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 was nursing a sick man, she longed to move with noiseless steps
about the room of a sick man; if she read of a member of Parliament making a
speech, she longed to be delivering the speech; 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 boldness, she too wished to be doing the same. But
there was no chance of doing anything; and twisting the smooth paper-knife in
her little hands, she forced herself to read.</p>
<p>The hero of the novel was already almost reaching his English happiness, a
baronetcy and an estate, and Anna was feeling a desire to go with him to the
estate, when she suddenly felt that <i>he</i> ought to feel ashamed, and that
she was ashamed of the same thing. But what had he to be ashamed of?
“What have I to be ashamed of?” she asked herself in injured
surprise. She laid down the book and sank against the back of the chair,
tightly gripping the paper-cutter in both hands. There was nothing. She went
over all her Moscow recollections. All were good, pleasant. She remembered the
ball, remembered Vronsky and his face of slavish adoration, remembered all her
conduct with him: there was nothing shameful. And for all that, at the same
point in her memories, the feeling of shame was intensified, as though some
inner voice, just at the point when she thought of Vronsky, were saying to her,
“Warm, very warm, hot.” “Well, what is it?” she said to
herself resolutely, shifting her seat in the lounge. “What does it mean?
Am I afraid to look it straight in the face? Why, what is it? Can it be that
between me and this officer boy 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 definitely unable to
follow what she read. She passed the paper-knife over the window pane, then
laid its smooth, cool surface to her cheek, and almost laughed aloud at the
feeling of delight that all at once without cause came over her. She felt as
though her nerves were strings being strained tighter and tighter on some sort
of screwing peg. She felt her eyes opening wider and wider, her fingers and
toes twitching nervously, something within oppressing her breathing, while all
shapes and sounds seemed in the uncertain half-light to strike her with
unaccustomed vividness. Moments of doubt were continually coming upon her, when
she was uncertain whether the train were going forwards or backwards, or were
standing still altogether; whether it were 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? Myself or some other woman?” She was afraid of
giving way to this delirium. But something drew her towards it, and she could
yield to it or resist it at will. She got up to rouse herself, and slipped off
her plaid and the cape of her warm dress. For a moment she regained her
self-possession, and realized that the thin peasant who had come in wearing a
long overcoat, with buttons missing from it, was the stoveheater, that he was
looking at the thermometer, that it was the wind and snow bursting in after him
at the door; but then everything grew blurred again.... That peasant with the
long waist seemed to be gnawing something on the wall, the old lady began
stretching her legs the whole length of the carriage, and filling it with a
black cloud; then there was a fearful shrieking and banging, as though someone
were being torn to pieces; then there was a blinding dazzle of red fire before
her eyes and a wall seemed to rise up and hide everything. Anna felt as though
she were sinking down. But it was not terrible, but delightful. The voice of a
man muffled up and covered with snow shouted something in her ear. She got up
and pulled herself together; she realized that they had reached a station and
that this was the guard. She asked Annushka to hand her the cape she had taken
off and her shawl, put them on and moved towards the door.</p>
<p>“Do you wish to get out?” asked Annushka.</p>
<p>“Yes, I want a little air. It’s very hot in here.” And she
opened the door. The driving snow and the wind rushed to meet her and struggled
with her over the door. But she enjoyed the struggle.</p>
<p>She opened the door and went out. The wind seemed as though lying in wait for
her; with gleeful whistle it tried to snatch her up and bear her off, but she
clung to the cold door post, and holding her skirt got down onto the platform
and under the shelter of the carriages. The wind had been powerful on the
steps, but on the platform, under the lee of the carriages, there was a lull.
With enjoyment she drew deep breaths of the frozen, snowy air, and standing
near the carriage looked about the platform and the lighted station.</p>
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