CHAPTER XXXI
A bell sounded, and some impudent young men, ugly and vulgar, and yet mindful of the impression they produced, hurried before her. Then Piotr, in his livery and top-boots, with his dull, good-natured face, crossed the waiting-room, and came up to escort her to the carriage. The noisy men about the door stopped talking while she passed out on the platform; then one of them whispered to his neighbor some remark, which was apparently impudent. Anna mounted the high steps, and sat down alone in the compartment on the dirty sofa which once had been white, and laid her bag beside her on the springy seat. Piotr, at the window, raised his gold-laced hat, with an inane smile, for a farewell, and departed. The saucy conductor shut the door. A woman, deformed, and ridiculously dressed up, followed by a little girl laughing affectedly, passed below the car-window. Anna looked at her with disgust. "Katerina Andreyevna has everything, ma tante," screamed the little girl.
"That child, even she is grotesque and makes grimaces," thought Anna; and she seated herself at the opposite window of the empty apartment, to avoid seeing the people.
A dirty hunchback muzhik passed close to the window, and examined the car-wheels; he wore a cap, from beneath which could be seen tufts of disheveled hair.
"There is something familiar about that humpbacked muzhik," thought Anna; and suddenly she remembered her nightmare, and drew back, trembling with fright, toward the carriage-door, which the conductor was just opening to admit a lady and gentleman.
"Do you want to get out?"
Anna did not answer; under her veil the conductor and the passengers did not see the horror in her face. She returned to her corner and sat down again. The couple took seats opposite her, and cast stealthy but curious
