Seeing the Volunteers off

At the station Koznyshev and Katavasov find Volunteers arriving on four izvoshchiks, met by ladies with nosegays. A Princess who comes to every send-off checks her figures with Koznyshev — more than a thousand gone, more than a million roubles collected — and exults over the telegram saying the Turks have been beaten for three days. She asks him to write a note for a young man sent by the Countess Lydia Ivanovna. She tells him Count Vronsky is going by this train, seen off only by his mother, and that it is the best thing he could do. A man with a glass makes a speech about serving the Faith, humanity and our brothers, and the crowd shouts 'Zhivio!' Oblonsky appears delighted, tries to push Koznyshev into speaking, asks him to tell Dolly he is appointed Member of the Committee of the Joint, and drops five roubles in a box. Told about Vronsky he looks sad for a moment, then goes to him having forgotten how he sobbed over his sister's corpse. Vronsky passes with his mother on his arm, his suffering face petrified, silently raises his hat, and disappears into a compartment as 'God save the Tsar' strikes up.

Anna's death reaches the reader as station gossip — a Princess saying it is the best thing he could do — and Tolstoy withholds Vronsky's interior entirely, giving only a petrified face and a raised hat. The clause about Oblonsky forgetting how he sobbed over the corpse is placed without comment, which makes it the harshest sentence in the chapter.