coachman, Feodor, and that merchant, and all people from here to the Volga, wherever these remarks are applicableand everywhere and always," she thought as the carriage stopped in front of the low-roofed station of the Nizhni Novgorod Railroad, and the porter came out to meet her. "Shall I book you for Obiralovki?" asked Peter. She had entirely forgotten why she had come, and only by a great effort could she understand what he meant. "Yes," she said, handing him her purse; and taking her little red bag, she got out of the carriage. - As she entered with the throng, she reviewed all the details of her situation and the plans between which she was halting. And again hope and despair alternately filled her tortured, cruelly palpitating heart. As she sat on the stelliform divan, she looked with aversion on the people going and coming,they were all her enemies, and thought now of how, when she reached the station, she would write to him, and what she would write, and then how at this very moment he not thinking of her suffering - was complaining to his mother of his position, and how she would go to his room, and what she would say to him. The thought that she might yet live happily crossed her brain; and how hard it was to love and hate him at the same time! And above all, how her heart was beating, as if to burst its bounds! The A bell sounded, and some impudent young men of a flashy and vulgar appearance passed before her. Then Piotr, in his livery and top boots, with his dull, good-natured face, crossed the waiting room, and came up to escort her to the cars. noisy men about the door stopped talking while she passed out upon the platform; then one of them made some remark to his neighbor, which was apparently an insult. Anna mounted the high steps, and sat down alone in the compartment on the dirty sofa which once had been white, and laid her bag beside her on the springy seat. Piotr raised his gold-laced hat, with an inane smile, for a farewell, and departed. The saucy conductor shut the door. A woman, deformed, and ridiculously dressed up, followed by a little girl laughing affectedly, passed below the car window. Anna looked at her with disgust. The little girl was speaking loud in a mixture of Russian and French. "That child is grotesque and already self-conscious," thought Anna; and she seated herself at the opposite window of the empty apartment, to avoid seeing the people. A dirty hunchbacked muzhik passed close to the window, and examined the car wheels: he wore a cap, from beneath which could be seen tufts of disheveled hair. "There is something familiar about that humpbacked muzhik,” thought Anna; and suddenly she remembered her nightmare, and drew back frightened towards the car door, which the conductor was just opening to admit a lady and gentleman. "Do you want to get out?" Anna did not answer, and under her veil no one could see the terror which paralyzed her. She sat down again. The couple took seats opposite her, and cast stealthy but curious glances at her dress. The husband and wife were obnoxious to her. The husband asked her if she objected to smoking, evidently not for the sake of smoking, but as an excuse for entering into conversation with her. Having obtained her permission, he remarked to his wife in French that he felt even more inclined to talk than to smoke. They exchanged stupid remarks, with the hope of attracting Anna's attention, and drawing her into the conversation. Anna clearly saw how they bored each other, how they hated each other. It was impossible not to hate such painful monstrosities. The second gong sounded, and was followed by the rumble of baggage, noise, shouts, laughter. Anna saw so clearly that there was nothing to rejoice at, that this laughter roused her indignation, and she longed to stop her ears. At last the third signal was given, the train started, the locomotive whistled, and the gentleman crossed himself. "It would be interesting to ask him what he meant by that," thought Anna, looking at him angrily. Then she looked by the woman's head out of the car window at the people standing and walking on the platform. The car in which Anna sat moved past the stone walls of the station, the switches, the other cars. The motion became more rapid; the rays of the setting sun slanted into the car window, and a light breeze played through the slats of the blinds. Forgetting her neighbors, Anna breathed in the fresh air, and took up again the course of her thoughts. "There! What was I thinking about? I cannot imagine any situation in which my life could be anything but one long misery. We are all dedicated to unhappiness: we all know it, and only seek for ways to deceive ourselves. But when you see the truth, what is to be done?" "Reason was given to man, that he might avoid what he dislikes," remarked the woman, in French, apparently delighted with her sentence. The words fitted in with Anna's thought. "To avoid what he dislikes," she repeated; and a glance at the handsome-faced man, and his thin better half, showed her that the woman looked upon herself as a misunderstood creature, and that her stout husband did not contradict this opinion, but took advantage of it to deceive her. Anna, as it were, read their history, and looked into the most secret depths of their hearts; but it was not interesting, and she went on with her reflections. "Yes, it is very unpleasant to me, and reason was given to avoid it therefore, it must be done. Why not extinguish the light when it shines on things disgusting to see? But how? Why does the conductor keep hurrying through the car? Why does he shout? Why are there people in this car? Why do they speak? What are they laughing at? It is all false, all a lie, all deception, all vanity and vexation." When the train reached the station, Anna followed the other passengers, and tried to avoid too rude a contact with the bustling crowd. She hesitated on the platform, trying to recollect why she had come, and to ask herself what she meant to do. All that seemed to her possible before to do now seemed to her difficult to execute, especially amid this disagreeable crowd. Now the porters came to her, and offered her their services; now some young men, clattering up and down the platform, and talking loud, observed her curiously; and she knew not where to take refuge. Finally, it occurred to her to stop an official, and ask him if a coachman had not been there with a letter for Count Vronsky. "The Count Vronsky? Just now some one was here. He was inquiring for the Princess Sorokina and her daughter. What kind of a looking man is this coachman?" Just then Anna espied the coachman, Mikhail, rosy and gay in his elegant blue livery and watch chain, coming towards her, and carrying a note, immensely proud that he had fulfilled his commission. Anna broke the seal, and her heart stood still as she read the carelessly written lines: I am very sorry that your note did not find me in Moscow. I shall return at ten o'clock. "Yes, that is what I expected," she said to herself, with a sardonic smile. Very good, you can go home," she said to Mikhail. She spoke the words slowly and gently, because her heart beat so that she could scarcely breathe or speak. "No, I will not let you make me suffer so," thought she, addressing with a threat, not Vronsky so much as the thought that was torturing her; and she moved along the platform. Two chambermaids waiting there turned to look at her, and made audible remarks about her toilet. "Just in style," they said, referring to her lace. The young men would not leave her in peace. They stared at her, and passed her again and again, making their jokes so that she should hear. The station master came to her, and asked if she was going to take the train. A lad selling kvas did not take his eyes from her. "Bozhe moï! where shall I fly?" she said to herself. When she reached the end of the platform, she stopped. Some women and children were there, talking with a man in spectacles, who had probably come to the station to meet them. They, too, stopped, and turned to see Anna pass by. She hastened her steps. A truck full of trunks rumbled by, making the floor shake so that she felt as if she were on a moving train. Suddenly she remembered the man who was run over on the day when she met Vronsky for the first time, and she knew then what was in store for her. With light and swift steps she descended the stairway which led from the pump at the end of the platform down to the rails, and stood very near the train, which was slowly passing by. She looked under the cars, at the chains and the brake, and the high iron wheels, and she tried to estimate with her eye the distance between the fore and back wheels, and the moment when the middle would be in front of her. "There," she said, looking at the shadow of the car thrown upon the black coal dust which covered the sleepers, "there, in the center, he will be punished, and I shall be delivered from it all, and from myself." - Her little red traveling bag caused her to lose the moment when she could throw herself under the wheels of the first car she could not detach it from her arm. She awaited the second. A feeling like that she had experienced once, just before taking a dive in the river, came over her, and she made the sign of the cross. This familiar gesture called back to her soul memories of youth and childhood. Life, with its elusive joys, glowed for an instant before her, but she did not take her eyes from the car; and when the middle, between the two wheels, appeared, she threw away her red bag, drawing her head between her shoulders, and, with outstretched hands, threw herself on her knees under the car. She had time to feel afraid. "Where am I? What am I doing? Why?" thought she, trying to draw back; but a great, inflexible mass struck her head, and threw her upon her back. "Lord, forgive me all !" she murmured, feeling the struggle to be in vain. A little muzhik was working on the railroad, mumbling in his beard. And the candle by which she read, as in a book, the fulfillment of her life's work, of its deceptions, its grief, and its torment, flared up with greater brightness than she had ever known, revealing to her all that before was in darkness, then flickered, grew faint, and went out forever. CLEOPATRA.1 BY WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. [WILLIAM WETMORE STORY, lawyer, sculptor, and poet, was born in Salem, Mass., February 19, 1819, the son of Joseph Story, the eminent jurist. After graduating at Harvard, he studied law with his father and amused his leisure with sculpture. He went to Rome in 1848, and soon became proficient in the art which he had taken up as an amateur at home. He wrote legal treatises, and volumes of prose and poetry, among them being "Nature and Art: a Poem " (1844), "Roba di Roma, or Walks and Talks in Rome" (1862), "Excursus in Art and Letters" (1891), and " A Poet's Portfolio" (1894). He died at Vallombrosa, near Florence, October 8, 1895.] [Dedicated to J. L. M.] HERE, Charmian, take my bracelets They bar with a purple stain My arms; turn over my pillows Open the lattice wider, A gauze on my bosom throw, 1 By permission of W. Blackwood & Sons. |