Anna Karenina

with snow on one
side, and were getting more and more snowed under. For a moment
there would come a lull in the storm, but then it would again swoop
down with such gusts that it seemed impossible to withstand it.
Meanwhile some men or other were dashing about, gaily talking to one
another, making the boards of the platform creak and ceaselessly
opening and shutting the big doors. A stooping human shadow glided
by at her feet, and she heard a hammer tapping upon iron. "Let's
have the telegram!" came an angry voice out of the stormy murk on
the other side. "This way! No. 28!" other voices were also shouting,
and muffled figures scurried by, plastered with snow. Two gentlemen
passed by her, cigarettes glowing in their mouths. She drew in one
more deep breath, and had just taken her hand out of her muff to grasp
the doorpost and enter the car, when still another man in a military
overcoat, quite close beside her, stepped between her and the
flickering light of a lantern. She looked round, and the same
instant recognized Vronsky's face. Putting his hand to the peak of his
cap, he bowed to her and asked if there weren't anything she wanted,
whether he could not be of some service to her? She gazed rather
long at him, without any answer, and, in spite of the shadow in
which he was standing, she saw (or fancied she saw) the expression
both of his face and his eyes. It was again that expression of
reverent rapture which had affected her so yesterday. More than once
she had told herself during the past few days, and only just now, that
Vronsky was for her only one of the hundreds of young men, forever
exactly the same, that one meets everywhere; that she would never
permit herself even to think of him; yet now at the first flush of
meeting him, she was seized by an emotion of joyous pride. She had
no need to ask why he was here. She knew, as surely as if he had
told her, that he was here only to be where she was.
"I didn't know you were going. And why are you going?" she said,
letting fall the hand which had grasped the doorpost. And
irrepressible joy and animation shone in her face.
"Why am I going?" he repeated, looking straight into her eyes.
"You know that I am going to be where you are," he said; "I cannot
do otherwise."
And at this very point, as though it had overcome all obstacles, the
wind scattered the snow from the car roofs, and began to flutter
some sheet of iron it had torn off, while the low-pitched whistle of
the engine set up a roar in front, dismal and lamenting. All the
awesomeness of the blizzard now seemed still more splendid to her.
He had uttered precisely what her soul yearned for, but which her
reason dreaded. She made