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lady with black eyes and ringlets, screwed up her eyes, scanning
her son, and smiled slightly with her thin lips. Getting up from
the seat and handing her maid a bag, she gave her little wrinkled
hand to her son to kiss, and lifting his head from her hand,
kissed him on the cheek.
"You got my telegram? Quite well? Thank God."
"You had a good journey?" said her son, sitting down beside her,
and involuntarily listening to a woman's voice outside the door.
He knew it was the voice of the lady he had met at the door.
"All the same I don't agree with you," said the lady's voice.
"It's the Petersburg view, madame."
"Not Petersburg, but simply feminine," she responded.
"Well, well, allow me to kiss your hand."
"Good-bye, Ivan Petrovitch. And could you see if my brother is
here, and send him to me?" said the lady in the doorway, and
stepped back again into the compartment.
"Well, have you found your brother?" said Countess Vronskaya,
addressing the lady.
Vronsky understood now that this was Madame Karenina.
"Your brother is here," he said, standing up. "Excuse me, I did
not know you, and, indeed, our acquaintance was so slight," said
Vronsky, bowing, "that no doubt you do not remember me."
"Oh, no," said she, "I should have known you because your mother
and I have been talking, I think, of nothing but you all the
way." As she spoke she let the eagerness that would insist on
coming out show itself in her smile. "And still no sign of my
brother."
"Do call him, Alexey," said the old countess. Vronsky stepped
out onto the platform and shouted:
"Oblonsky! Here!"
Madame Karenina, however, did not wait for her brother, but
catching sight of him she stepped out with her light, resolute
step. And as soon as her brother had reached her, with a gesture
that struck Vronsky by its decision and its grace, she flung her
left arm around his neck, drew him rapidly to her, and kissed him
warmly. Vronsky gazed, never taking his eyes from her, and
smiled, he could not have said why. But recollecting that his
mother was waiting for him, he went back again into the carriage.
"She's very sweet, isn't she?" said the countess of Madame
Karenina. "Her husband put her with me, and I was delighted to
have her. We've been talking all the way. And so you, I
hear..._vous filez le parfait amour. Tant mieux, mon cher, tant
mieux._"
"I don't know what you are referring to, maman," he answered
coldly. "Come, maman, let us go."
Madame Karenina entered the carriage again to say good-bye to the
countess.
"Well, countess, you have met your son, and I my brother," she
said. "And all my gossip is exhausted. I should have nothing
more to tell you."
"Oh, no," said the countess, taking her hand. "I could go all
around the world with you and never be dull. You are one of
those delightful women in whose company it's sweet to be silent
as well as to talk. Now please don't fret over your son; you
can't expect never to be parted."
Madame Karenina stood quite still, holding herself very erect,
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