Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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edge of
the platform. A luggage train was coming in. The platform began
to sway, and she fancied she was in the train again.
And all at once she thought of the man crushed by the train the
day she had first met Vronsky, and she knew what she had to do.
With a rapid, light step she went down the steps that led from
the tank to the rails and stopped quite near the approaching
train.
She looked at the lower part of the carriages, at the screws and
chains and the tall cast-iron wheel of the first carriage slowly
moving up, and trying to measure the middle between the front and
back wheels, and the very minute when that middle point would be
opposite her.
"There," she said to herself, looking into the shadow of the
carriage, at the sand and coal dust which covered the sleepers--
"there, in the very middle, and I will punish him and escape
from everyone and from myself."
She tried to fling herself below the wheels of the first carriage
as it reached her; but the red bag which she tried to drop out of
her hand delayed her, and she was too late; she missed the
moment. She had to wait for the next carriage. A feeling such
as she had known when about to take the first plunge in bathing
came upon her, and she crossed herself. That familiar gesture
brought back into her soul a whole series of girlish and childish
memories, and suddenly the darkness that had covered everything
for her was torn apart, and life rose up before her for an
instant with all its bright past joys. But she did not take her
eyes from the wheels of the second carriage. And exactly at the
moment when the space between the wheels came opposite her, she
dropped the red bag, and drawing her head back into her
shoulders, fell on her hands under the carriage, and lightly, as
though she would rise again at once, dropped on to her knees.
And at the same instant she was terror-stricken at what she was
doing. "Where am I? What am I doing? What for?" She tried to
get up, to drop backwards; but something huge and merciless
struck her on the head and rolled her on her back. "Lord,
forgive me all!" she said, feeling it impossible to struggle. A
peasant muttering something was working at the iron above her.
And the light by which she had read the book filled with
troubles, falsehoods, sorrow, and evil, flared up more brightly
than ever before, lighted up for her all that had been in
darkness, flickered, began to grow dim, and was quenched forever.
PART 8
Chapter 1
Almost two months had passed. The hot summer was half over, but
Sergey Ivanovitch was only just preparing to leave Moscow.
Sergey Ivanovitchs life had not been uneventful during this
time. A year ago he had finished his book, the fruit of six
years labor, "Sketch of a Survey of the Principles and Forms of
Government in Europe and Russia." Several sections of this book
and its introduction had appeared in periodical publications, and
other parts had been read by Sergey Ivanovitch to persons of his
circle, so that the leading ideas of the work could not be
completely novel to the public. But still Sergey Ivanovitch had
expected that on its appearance his book would be sure to make a
serious impression on society, and if it did not cause a
revolution in social science it would, at any rate, make a great
stir in the scientific world.
After the most conscientious revision the book had last year been
published, and had been distributed among the booksellers.
Though he asked no one about it, reluctantly and with feigned
indifference answered his friends inquiries as to how the book
was going, and did not even inquire of the booksellers how the
book was selling, Sergey Ivanovitch was all on the alert, with
strained attention, watching for the first impression his book
would make in the world and in literature.
But a week passed, a second, a third, and in society no
impression whatever could be detected. His friends who were
specialists and savants, occasionally--unmistakably from
politeness--alluded to it. The rest of his acquaintances, not
interested in a book on a learned subject, did not talk of it at
all. And society generally--just now especially absorbed in
other things--was absolutely indifferent. In the press,
Anna Karenina page 438 Anna Karenina page 440
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