BROTHER AND SISTER
THERE were still two hours before the passenger train, by which Nekhlyudov was going, would start. He had thought of using this interval to see his sister again; but after the impressions of the morning he felt so excited and done up that, sitting down on a sofa in the first-class refreshment room he quite unexpectedly found himself so drowsy that he turned over on his side and at once fell asleep with his head on his hand.
A waiter in a dress-coat with a napkin in his hand woke him.
“Please, sir, are you not Prince Nekhlyudov? A lady is looking for you.”
Nekhlyudov started up, and, rubbing his eyes, recollected where he was and all that had happened in the morning.
He saw in imagination the procession of prisoners, the dead bodies, the railway carriages with barred windows and women locked up in them, one of whom was lacking assistance though tortured in travail, with another was pathetically smiling at him through the bars.
The reality before his eyes was very different: a table with vases, candlesticks and crockery, and agile waiters moving round it; and, at the end of the room, a cupboard, an array of bottles, and bowls of fruit, a barman, and the backs of passengers standing at the bar.
When Nekhlyudov had risen, and sat gradually collecting his thoughts, he noticed that everybody in the room was inquisitively looking at something occurring in the doorway. He also looked, and saw a procession of people carrying a chair on which sat a lady whose head was wrapped in some kind of airy fabric. Nekhlyudov thought he knew the footman who was supporting the chair in front, and the man behind, with gold cord on his cap, was a familiar doorkeeper. An elegant lady’s-maid with a fringe and an apron, who was carrying a parcel, a parasol, and something in a round leather case, was walking behind the chair. Then came Prince Korchagin with his thick lips and apoplectic neck, and with a travelling cap on his head: behind him Missy, her cousin Misha, and an acquaintance of Nekhlyudov’s – the long-necked diplomatist, Osten, with his protruding Adam’s-apple and his unvarying merry mood and expression. He was saying something very emphatically, though jokingly, to the smiling Missy. The doctor was walking behind, angrily puffing at a cigarette. The Korchagins were moving from their estate near the city to the estate of the Princess’s sister on the Nizhny railway.
The procession – the men carrying the chair, the maid, and the doctor – vanished into the ladies’ waiting room, evoking a feeling of curiosity and respect in the onlookers. But the old Prince remained, and, sitting down at the table, called the waiter and ordered food and drink. Missy and Osten also remained in the refreshment room, and were about to sit down when they saw an acquaintance in the doorway and went up to her. It was Nataly Rogozhinskaya.
Nataly came into the refreshment room accompanied by Agrafena Petrovna, and both looked round the room. Nataly noticed, at the same moment, both her brother and Missy. She merely nodded to her brother, first going up to Missy; but having kissed her, she at once turned to him..
“At last I have found you,” she said. Nekhlyudov rose to greet Missy, Misha, and Osten, and to say a few words to them. Missy told him of a fire at their country house, which necessitated their moving to her aunt’s. Osten began relating a funny story about a fire.
Nekhlyudov paid no attention, and turned to his sister.
“How glad I am that you have come.”
“I have been here a long time,” she said. “Agrafena Petrovna is with me.” And she pointed to Agrafena Petrovna, who, in a waterproof and with a bonnet on her head, stood some way off and bowed to him with kindly dignity and some confusion, not wishing to intrude.