and joy; he involuntarily straightened himself; his eyes glistened; he felt that he had won a victory.
"The Countess Vronskaya is in that compartment," said the vigorous conductor, approaching him. These words awoke him from his reverie, and brought his thoughts back to his mother and their approaching meeting. In his soul he did not respect his mother, and, without ever having confessed as much to himself, he did not love her. But his education and the usages of the society in which he lived did not allow him to admit that there could be in his relations with her the slightest want of consideration. But the more he exaggerated the bare outside forms, the less he felt in his heart that he respected or loved her.
CHAPTER XVIII
Vronsky followed the conductor, and, as he was about to enter the railway-carriage, he stood aside to allow a lady to pass him.
With the instant intuition of a man of the world, he saw, by a single glance at this lady's exterior, that she belonged to the very best society. Begging her pardon, he was about to enter the door, but involuntarily he turned to give another look at the lady, not because she was very beautiful, not because of that elegance and that unassuming grace which were expressed in her whole person, but because the expression of her lovely face, as she passed, seemed to him so gentle and sweet.
Just as he looked back at her, she also turned her head. Her brilliant gray eyes, looking almost black under the long lashes, rested on his face with a friendly, attentive look, as if she recognized him; and instantly she turned to seek some one in the throng.
Quick as this glance was, Vronsky had time to perceive the dignified vivacity which played in her face and fluttered between her shining eyes, and the scarcely perceptible smile parting her rosy lips. There seemed to be in her whole person such a superfluity of life
