A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same
time careful of the impression they were making, hurried by.
Pyotr, too, crossed the room in his livery and top-boots, with
his dull, animal face, and came up to her to take her to the
train. Some noisy men were quiet as she passed them on the
platform, and one whispered something about her to another--
something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on the high step, and
sat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty seat that had been
white. Her bag lay beside her, shaken up and down by the
springiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Pyotr raised his
hat, with its colored band, at the window, in token of farewell;
an impudent conductor slammed the door and the latch. A
grotesque-looking lady wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressed
the woman, and was appalled at her hideousness), and a little
girl laughing affectedly ran down the platform.
"Katerina Andreevna, she's got them all, _ma tante!_" cried the
girl.
"Even the child's hideous and affected," thought Anna. To avoid
seeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated herself at the
opposite window of the empty carriage. A misshapen-looking
peasant covered with dirt, in a cap from which his tangled hair
stuck out all round, passed by that window, stooping down to the
carriage wheels. "There's something familiar about that hideous
peasant," thought Anna. And remembering her dream, she moved
away to the opposite door, shaking with terror. The conductor
opened the door and let in a man and his wife.
"Do you wish to get out?"
Anna made no answer. The conductor and her two fellow-passengers
did not notice under her veil her panic-stricken face. She went
back to her corner and sat down. The couple seated themselves on
the opposite side, and intently but surreptitiously scrutinized
her clothes. Both husband and wife seemed repulsive to Anna.
The husband asked, would she allow him to smoke, obviously not
with a view to smoking but to getting into conversation with her.
Receiving her assent, he said to his wife in French something
about caring less to smoke than to talk. They made inane and
affected remarks to one another, entirely for her benefit. Anna
saw clearly that they were sick of each other, and hated each
other. And no one could have helped hating such miserable
monstrosities.
A second bell sounded, and was followed by moving of luggage,
noise, shouting and laughter. It was so clear to Anna that there
was nothing for anyone to be glad of, that this laughter
irritated her agonizingly, and she would have liked to stop up
her ears not to hear it. At last the third bell rang, there was
a whistle and a hiss of steam, and a clank of chains, and the man
in her carriage crossed himself. "It would be interesting to ask
him what meaning he attaches to that," thought Anna, looking
angrily at him. She looked past the lady out of the window at
the people who seemed whirling by as they ran beside the train or
stood on the platform. The train, jerking at regular intervals
at the junctions of the rails, rolled by the platform, past a
stone wall, a signal-box, past other trains; the wheels, moving
more smoothly and evenly, resounded with a slight clang on the
rails. The window was lighted up by the bright evening sun, and
a slight breeze fluttered the curtain. Anna forgot her fellow
passengers, and to the light swaying of the train she fell to
thinking again, as she breathed the fresh air.