CHAPTER XVII
The next morning, about eleven o'clock, Vronsky went to the station to meet his mother on the Petersburg train; and the first person he saw on the grand staircase was Oblonsky, who was expecting his sister on the same train.
"Ah! your excellency," cried Oblonsky, "are you expecting some one?"
"My matushka," replied Vronsky, with the smile with which people always met Oblonsky. And, after shaking hands, they mounted the staircase side by side. "She was to come from Petersburg to-day."
"I waited for you till two o'clock this morning. Where did you go after leaving the Shcherbatskys'?"
"Home," replied Vronsky. "To tell the truth, after such a pleasant evening at the Shcherbatskys', I did not feel like going anywhere."
"I know fiery horses by their brand, and young people who are in love by their eyes," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, in the same dramatic tone in which he had spoken to Levin the afternoon before.
Vronsky smiled, as much as to say that he did not deny it; but he hastened to change the conversation.
"And whom have you to meet?" he asked.
"I? a very pretty woman," said Oblonsky.
"Ah! indeed!"
"Honi soit qui mal y pense! My sister Anna!"
"Akh! Madame Karenina!" exclaimed Vronsky.
"Do you know her, then?"
"It seems to me that I do. Or, no .... the truth is, I don't think I do," replied Vronsky, somewhat confused. The name Karenin dimly brought to his mind a tiresome and conceited person.
"But Alekseï Aleksandrovitch, my celebrated brother-in-law, you must know him! Every one knows him."
"That is, I know him by reputation, and by sight. I know that he is talented, learned, and rather adorable .... but you know that he is not .... not in my line," said Vronsky in English.
"Yes; he is a very remarkable man, somewhat conservative, but a splendid man," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch. "A splendid man."
"Well! so much the better for him," said Vronsky, smiling. "Ah! here you are," he cried, seeing his mother's old lackey standing at the door. "Come this way," he added.
Vronsky, besides experiencing the pleasure that everybody felt in seeing Stepan Arkadyevitch, had felt especially drawn to him, because, in a certain way, it brought him closer to Kitty.
"Well, now, what do you say to giving the diva a supper Sunday?" said he, with a smile, taking him by the arm.
"Certainly; I will pay my share. Oh, tell me, did you meet my friend Levin last evening?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Yes, but he went away very early."
"He is a glorious young fellow," said Oblonsky, "is n't he?"
"I don't know why it is," replied Vronsky, "but all the Muscovites, present company excepted," he added jestingly, "have something sharp about them. They all seem to be high-strung, fiery tempered, as if they all wanted to make you understand .... "
"That is true enough; there is .... " replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling pleasantly.
"Is the train on time?" asked Vronsky of an employee.
"It will be here directly," replied the employee.
The increasing bustle in the station, the coming and going of porters, the appearance of policemen and officials, the arrival of expectant friends, all indicated the approach of the train. Through the frosty steam, workmen could be seen passing in their soft blouses and felt boots amid the network of rails. The whistle of the coming engine was heard, and the approach of something heavy.
"No," continued Stepan Arkadyevitch, who was anxious to inform Vronsky of Levin's intentions in regard to Kitty. "No, you are really unjust to my friend Levin. He is a very nervous man, and sometimes he can be disagreeable; but, on the other hand, he can be very charming. He is such an upright, genuine nature, true gold! Last evening there were special reasons," continued Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a significant smile, and entirely forgetting his genuine sympathy, which the evening before he had felt for his old friend, and now experiencing the same sympathy for Vronsky. "Yes, there was a reason why he should have been either very happy or very unhappy."
Vronsky stopped short, and asked point-blank:—
"What was it? Do you mean that he proposed yesterday evening to your sister-in-law?"
"Possibly," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Something like that seemed probable last evening. Yes, if he went off so early, and was in such bad spirits, then it is so. .... He has been in love with her for so long, and I am very sorry for him."
"Ah, indeed! .... I thought that she might, however, have aspirations for a better match," said Vronsky, and, filling out his chest, he began to walk up and down again. Then he added: "However, I don't know him; yes, this promises to be a painful situation. That is why the majority of men prefer to consort with their Claras. There, lack of success shows that you have n't money enough; but here you stand on your own merits. But here is the train."
In fact, the engine was now whistling some distance away. But in a few minutes the platform shook, and the locomotive, puffing out the steam condensed by the cold air, came rolling into the station, with the lever of the central wheel slowly and rhythmically rising and falling, and the engineer well muffled and covered with frost. Next the tender came the baggage-car, still more violently shaking the platform; a dog in its cage was yelping piteously; finally appeared the passenger-cars, which jolted together as the train came to a stop.
The vigorous-looking conductor sprang down from the car and whistled; and behind him came the more impatient of the travelers,—an officer of the Guard, straight and imperious, a nimble little merchant, gayly smiling, with his gripsack, and a muzhik, with his bundle over his shoulder.
Vronsky, standing near Oblonsky, watched the cars and the passengers, and completely forgot his mother. What he had just heard about Kitty caused him emotion and joy; he involuntarily straightened himself; his eyes glistened; he felt that he had won a victory.
"The Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment," said the vigorous conductor, approaching him. These words awoke him from his reverie, and brought his thoughts back to his mother and their approaching meeting. In his soul he did not respect his mother, and, without ever having confessed as much to himself, he did not love her. But his education and the usages of the society in which he lived did not allow him to admit that there could be in his relations with her the slightest want of consideration. But the more he exaggerated the bare outside forms, the less he felt in his heart that he respected or loved her.