Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 18
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, and her eyes were
smiling.
“Anna Arkadyevna,” the countess said in explanation to her son, “has a little son
eight years old, I believe, and she has never been parted from him before, and she
keeps fretting over leaving him.”
“Yes, the countess and I have been talking all the time, I of my son and she of
hers,” said Madame Karenina, and again a smile lighted up her face, a caressing
smile intended for him.
“I am afraid that you must have been dreadfully bored,” he said, promptly catching
the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue
the conversation in that strain, and she turned to the old countess.
“Thank you so much. The time has passed so quickly. Good-bye, countess.”
“Good-bye, my love,” answered the countess. “Let me have a kiss of your pretty
face. I speak plainly, at my age, and I tell you simply that I’ve lost my heart to you.”
Stereotyped as the phrase was, Madame Karenina obviously believed it and was
delighted by it. She flushed, bent down slightly, and put her cheek to the countess’s
lips, drew herself up again, and with the same smile fluttering between her lips and
her eyes, she gave her hand to Vronsky. He pressed the little hand she gave him, and
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