Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [444]
‘Well, they need people there. I’ve heard the Serbian officers aren’t any good.’
‘Oh, yes, and these will make fine soldiers,’ Katavasov said, laughing with his eyes. And they began to talk about the latest war news, each concealing from the other his perplexity as to whom the next day’s battle was to be fought with, if, according to the latest news, the Turks had been beaten at all points. And so they parted, neither of them having voiced his opinion.
Katavasov went to his carriage and, involuntarily dissembling, told Sergei Ivanovich his observations on the volunteers, from which it turned out that they were excellent fellows.
At a large town station the volunteers were again met with singing and shouting, again men and women appeared with collection cups, and the provincial ladies offered bouquets to the volunteers and followed them to the buffet; but all this was considerably weaker and smaller than in Moscow.
IV
During the stop in the provincial capital Sergei Ivanovich did not go to the buffet but started pacing up and down the platform.
The first time he walked past Vronsky’s compartment, he noticed that the window was curtained. But, walking past it a second time, he saw the old countess at the window. She called him over to her.
‘You see, I’m accompanying him as far as Kursk,’ she said.
‘Yes, I heard,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, pausing by her window and looking inside. ‘What a handsome gesture on his part!’ he added, noticing that Vronsky was not in the compartment.
‘But after his misfortune what was he to do?’
‘Such a terrible occurrence!’ said Sergei Ivanovich.
‘Ah, what I’ve lived through! But do come in ... Ah, what I’ve lived through!’ she repeated, when Sergei Ivanovich came in and sat down beside her on the seat. ‘You can’t imagine! For six weeks he didn’t speak to anyone and ate only when I begged him to. And he couldn’t be left alone for a single moment. We took away everything he might have used to kill himself; we lived on the ground floor, but we couldn’t predict anything. You know, he already tried to shoot himself because of her,’ she said, and the old lady’s brows knitted at the memory of it. ‘Yes, she ended as such a woman should have ended. Even the death she chose was mean and low.’
‘It’s not for us to judge, Countess,’ Sergei Ivanovich said with a sigh, ‘but I understand how hard it was for you.’
‘Ah, don’t even say it! I was living on my estate and he was with me. A note was brought to him. He wrote a reply and sent it back. We had no idea that she was right there at the station. In the evening I had just gone to my room when my Mary told me that some lady at the station had thrown herself under a train. It was as if something hit me! I knew it was she. The first thing I said was: “Don’t tell him.” But he had already been told. His coachman was there and saw it all. When I came running into his room, he was no longer himself - it was terrible to look at him. He galloped off to the station without saying a word. I don’t know what happened there, but he was brought back like a dead man. I wouldn’t have recognized him. Prostration complète, the doctor said. Then came near frenzy.
‘Ah, what is there to say!’ the countess went on, waving her hand. ‘A terrible time! No, whatever you say, she was a bad woman. Well, what are these desperate passions! It’s all to prove something special. So she proved it. Ruined herself and two fine men - her husband and my unfortunate son.’
‘And what about her husband?’ asked Sergei Ivanovich.
‘He took her daughter. At first Alyosha agreed to everything. But now he suffers terribly for having given his daughter to a stranger. But he can’t go back on his word.