Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [446]
And suddenly a quite different feeling, not pain but a general, tormenting inner discomfort, made him forget his toothache for a moment. As he looked at the tender and the rails, influenced by the conversation with an acquaintance he had not met since his misfortune, he suddenly remembered her - that is, what was left of her when he came running like a madman into the shed of the railway station: on a table in the shed, sprawled shamelessly among strangers, lay the blood-covered body, still filled with recent life; the intact head with its heavy plaits and hair curling at the temples was thrown back, and on the lovely face with its half-open red lips a strange expression was frozen, pitiful on the lips and terrible in the fixed, unclosed eyes, as if uttering the words of that terrible phrase - that he would regret it - which she had spoken to him when they had quarrelled.
And he tried to remember her as she had been when he first met her, also at a station, mysterious, enchanting, loving, seeking and giving happiness, and not cruelly vengeful as he remembered her in the last moment. He tried to remember his best moments with her, but those moments were for ever poisoned. He remembered only her triumphant, accomplished threat of totally unnecessary but ineffaceable regret. He ceased to feel the toothache, and sobs distorted his face.
After silently walking past the sacks a couple of times and regaining control of himself, he calmly addressed Sergei Ivanovich:
‘Have you had any telegrams since yesterday’s? Yes, they were beaten for a third time, but tomorrow the decisive battle is expected.’
And having talked more about Milan being proclaimed king and the enormous consequences it might have, they went back to their carriages after the second bell.
VI
As he had not known when he would be able to leave Moscow, Sergei Ivanovich had not telegraphed his brother in order to be met. Levin was not at home when Katavasov and Sergei Ivanovich, dusty as Moors, in a little tarantass hired at the station, drove up to the porch of the Pokrovskoe house at around noon. Kitty, who was sitting on the balcony with her father and sister, recognized her brother-in-law and ran down to meet him.
‘Shame on you for not letting us know,’ she said, giving Sergei Ivanovich her hand and offering her forehead.
‘We had a wonderful ride, and without bothering you,’ replied Sergei Ivanovich. ‘I’m so dusty I’m afraid to touch you. I’ve been so busy I didn’t know when I’d be able to get away. And you, as ever,’ he said, smiling, ‘are enjoying quiet happiness far from all the currents in your quiet backwater. And our friend Fyodor Vassilyevich also finally decided to come.’
‘And I’m no Negro-I’ll wash and look like a human being,’ Katavasov said with his usual jocularity, giving her his hand and smiling, his teeth gleaming especially on account of his black face.
‘Kostya will be very glad. He’s gone out to the farmstead. He ought to be home any time now.’
‘Still busy with the farming. Precisely in backwaters,’ said Katavasov. ‘And we in the city see nothing but the Serbian war. Well, what’s my friend’s attitude? Surely something unlike other people’s?’
‘No, not really, the same as everyone else’s,’ Kitty replied, looking with some embarrassment at Sergei Ivanovich. ‘I’ll send for him, then. And we have papa with us. He came from abroad not long ago.’
And, giving orders that Levin be sent for and that her dust-covered guests be taken to wash, one to the study, the other to Dolly’s former room, and that lunch be prepared for them, she ran out to the balcony, exercising her right to move quickly, which she had been deprived of during her pregnancy.
‘It’s Sergei Ivanovich and Katavasov, a professor,’ she said.
‘Ah, it’s hard in such heat!’ said the prince.
‘No, papa, he’s very nice, and Kostya loves him very much,’said Kitty, smiling, as if persuading him of something, having noticed the mocking look on her father’s face.
‘Oh, don’t mind me.’
‘Go to them, darling,’ Kitty said to her sister, ‘and entertain them. They met