Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/1009

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ANNA KARENINA
327

"I do not need you, Piotr."

"Who will get your ticket?"

"Well, go if you wish; it makes no difference to me," she said pettishly.

Piotr nimbly mounted the box, and, folding his arms, ordered the coachman to drive to the station.


CHAPTER XXX

"Now I am myself again. Now I remember it all," said Anna to herself, as soon as the calash started, and, rocking a little, rattled along over the cobble-stones of the pavement; and once more her impressions began to go whirling through her mind.

"Yes, what was that good thing that I was thinking about last? Tiutkin, the coiffeur? Oh, no; not that. Oh, yes; what Yashvin said about the struggle for existence, and hatred, the only thing that unites men. No; we go at haphazard."

She saw in a carriage drawn by four horses a party of merrymakers, who had evidently come to the city for a pleasure-trip.

"And the dog which you take with you does not help you at all. You can't get out of yourself." Glancing in the direction where Piotr was turning, she saw a working-man almost dead drunk, who, with a flopping head, was being led by a policeman. She added: "That man's way is quicker. Count Vronsky and I did not reach this pleasure, though we expected much."

And now for the first time Anna turned this bright light, all-revealing, upon her relations with the count; hitherto she had steadfastly refused to do so.

"What did he seek in me? A satisfaction for his vanity, rather than for his love!"

She remembered Vronsky's words, and the expression of his face, which reminded her of a submissive dog, when they first met and loved. Everything seemed a confirmation of this thought.

"Yes; he cared for the triumph of success above