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be touched by my own tenderness. But I have lived without him, I
gave him up for another love, and did not regret the exchange till that
love was satisfied.” And with loathing she thought of what she meant
by that love. And the clearness with which she saw life now, her own
and all men’s, was a pleasure to her. “It’s so with me and Pyotr, and the
coachman, Fyodor, and that merchant, and all the people living along
the Volga, where those placards invite one to go, and everywhere and
always,” she thought when she had driven under the low-pitched roof
of the Nizhigorod station, and the porters ran to meet her.
“A ticket to Obiralovka?” said Pyotr.
She had utterly forgotten where and why she was going, and only
by a great effort she understood the question.
“Yes,” she said, handing him her purse, and taking a little red bag in
her hand, she got out of the carriage.
Making her way through the crowd to the first-class waiting-room,
she gradually recollected all the details of her position, and the plans
between which she was hesitating. And again at the old sore places,
hope and then despair poisoned the wounds of her tortured, fearfully
throbbing heart. As she sat on the star-shaped sofa waiting for the
train, she gazed with aversion at the people coming and going (they
were all hateful to her), and thought how she would arrive at the
station, would write him a note, and what she would write to him, and
how he was at this moment complaining to his mother of his position,
not understanding her sufferings, and how she would go into the room,
and what she would say to him. Then she thought that life might still
be happy, and how miserably she loved and hated him, and how fear-
fully her heart was beating.
Chapter 31.
A bell rang, some young men, ugly and impudent, and at the same
time careful of the impression they were making, hurried by. Pyotr, too,
crossed the room in his livery and top-boots, with his dull, animal face,
and came up to her to take her to the train. Some noisy men were quiet
as she passed them on the platform, and one whispered something
about her to another— something vile, no doubt. She stepped up on
the high step, and sat down in a carriage by herself on a dirty seat that
had been white. Her bag lay beside her, shaken up and down by the
springiness of the seat. With a foolish smile Pyotr raised his hat, with
its colored band, at the window, in token of farewell; an impudent
conductor slammed the door and the latch. A grotesque-looking lady
wearing a bustle (Anna mentally undressed the woman, and was ap-
palled at her hideousness), and a little girl laughing affectedly ran
down the platform.
“Katerina Andreevna, she’s got them all, ma tante!” cried the girl.
“Even the child’s hideous and affected,” thought Anna. To avoid
seeing anyone, she got up quickly and seated herself at the opposite
window of the empty carriage. A misshapen-looking peasant covered
with dirt, in a cap from which his tangled hair stuck out all round,
passed by that window, stooping down to the carriage wheels. “There’s
something familiar about that hideous peasant,” thought Anna. And