About this story
The countess sharing your compartment spends the journey praising a son who will meet the train; on the platform he turns out to be Alexei Vronsky, who takes your case from you while the snow comes down. Then a whistle cuts the porters short, men run toward a lantern fallen by the wheels, and the line is closed.
Who you’ll meet
Alexei Vronsky, the cavalry officer who bows on the Moscow platform and looks up a beat too early, flanked by his mother Countess Vronskaya and by your brother Stepan Oblonsky, who has come to the station to be rescued from his own marriage.
How it opens
Snow tapped the carriage windows while lamplight swung above sleeping passengers.
Countess VronskayaWe have shared a compartment all night and not yet exhausted our sons.
Countess VronskayaHis last letter bears a military crest larger than the news inside.
You had spoken of your own boy in Petersburg more readily than of your husband.
A mother can always discover one more virtue when the train is delayed.
Countess VronskayaAnd one more fault when the child is safely beyond hearing.