“‘Your rather too lively conversation this evening with Count Vronsky attracted attention.’ As he spoke he looked at Anna’s laughing eyes, for him so impenetrable, and saw with a feeling of terror all the idleness and uselessness of his words.... He trembled; again he twisted his fingers till the knuckles cracked.
“‘I beg of you, keep your hands still; I detest that,’ said she.
“‘Anna, is this you?’ he said, trying to control himself and stop the movement of his hands.”
When he declares that he loves her a frown passes over her face. The word irritates her.
“‘Love!’ she thought; ‘does he even know what it means!’ And when they retired she waited long without moving, expecting that he would speak to her, but he said nothing. Then the image of another filled her with emotion and with guilty joy. Suddenly she heard a slow and regular sound of snoring. ‘Too late! Too late!’ she thought, with a smile. She remained for a long time thus, motionless, with open eyes, the shining of which it seemed to her she herself could see. From this night a new life began for Karenin and his wife. There was no outward sign of it. Anna continued to go into society, and everywhere she met Vronsky. Karenin understood it, but was powerless to prevent it. Whenever he tried to bring about an explanation she met him with humorous surprise which was beyond his penetration.”
Another incident revealed to him still more clearly the terrible truth. A hurdle race at which Vronsky rode is described with a realism of which Tolstoi only is the master. Anna’s husband observes her while she watches the contest in which her lover is involved. “Her face was pale and stern. Nothing existed for her beyond the one person whom she was watching. Her hands convulsively clutched her fan. She held her breath.... He did not wish to look at her, but his gaze was irresistibly drawn to her face, whereon he read only too plainly and with feelings of horror all that he had tried to ignore.” When others fell in the race he saw that those were not the ones on whom her gaze was riveted. “The more he studied her face the greater became his shame. Absorbed as she was in her interest in Vronsky’s course, Anna was conscious that her husband’s cold eyes were upon her, and she turned around toward him for an instant questioningly and with a slight frown. ‘Ah! I don’t care,’ she seemed to say as she turned her glass to the race. She did not look at him again. The race was disastrous. Out of the seventeen riders more than half were thrown, and at last Vronsky fell. The terror caused by this was so universal that Anna’s cry of horror caused no astonishment, but her face continued to show more lively symptoms of her anxiety. She lost her presence of mind; she tried to escape like a bird caught in a snare. Her husband hastened to her and offered her his arm.
“‘Come, if it is your wish to go,’ he said in French; but she did not heed him, and gazed at the place where Vronsky had fallen. Her husband offered his arm again, and she drew back with aversion.”
At last, however, she feels compelled to accompany him to the carriage, and on the way home he reproves her.
“‘You have behaved improperly, and I would ask you not to let this happen again.’
“She heard only half of his words; she felt overwhelmed with fear; and she thought only of Vronsky, and whether he was killed.... She looked at her husband with an ironical smile, and answered not a word, because she had not noticed what he said. At first he had spoken boldly; but as he saw clearly what he was speaking about, the terror which possessed her seized him. At first her smile led him into a strange mistake. ‘She is amused at my suspicions! She is going to tell me now that they are groundless; that this is absurd.’ Such an answer he longed to hear: he was so afraid that his suspicions would be confirmed, that he was ready to believe any thing she might say. But the expression of her gloomy and frightened face allowed no further chance of falsehood.