Anna Karenina - Part 8

"With all his faults one can't refuse to do him justice," said

the princess to Sergey Ivanovitch as soon as Stepan Arkadyevitch

had left them. "What a typically Russian, Slav nature! Only,

I'm afraid it won't be pleasant for Vronsky to see him. Say what

you will, I'm touched by that man's fate. Do talk to him a

little on the way," said the princess.

"Yes, perhaps, if it happens so."

"I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He's not

merely going himself, he's taking a squadron at his own expense."

"Yes, so I heard."

A bell sounded. Everyone crowded to the doors. "Here he is!" said

the princess, indicating Vronsky, who with his mother on his arm

walked by, wearing a long overcoat and wide-brimmed black hat.

Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking eagerly of something.

Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as though

he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevitch was saying.

Probably on Oblonsky's pointing them out, he looked round in the

direction where the princess and Sergey Ivanovitch were standing,

and without speaking lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by

suffering, looked stony.

Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and disappeared

into a compartment.

On the platform there rang out "God save the Tsar," then shouts

of "hurrah!" and _"jivio!"_ One of the volunteers, a tall, very

young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous,

bowing and waving his felt hat and a nosegay over his head. Then

two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout man with a big

beard, wearing a greasy forage cap.