Anna Karenina Page #43

waiting to board the train or to meet the arriving passengers. There is an

energy about the people-- shouting, laughter, movement. Porters shout for

custom. A couple of Young Men seem to be laughing rudely directly at her,

but they pass by, ignoring her.

Anna pauses, bewildered, lost, not knowing what to do next.

She sees the Sorokina Coachman on the platform, recognising his distinctive

livery, a cockade in his hat.

ANNA:

Are you waiting for the Princess Sorokina?

192

COACHMAN:

No, Your Excellency, both princesses are at

the house of Countess Vronsky. I'm waiting

FOR HIM--

Anna turns back, agitated, expecting Vronsky to appear, but what comes

is a Footman carrying three hatboxes and a large box from a dress shop.

Anna walks away, along the platform, impeded by people going by her,

aware that some are staring at her as she passes. A Boy selling drinks grins

at her. A little group of Ladies and Children meeting a bespectacled man

off the train are laughing and chattering but fall silent and look at her. She

increases her pace. She hurries away towards the far end of the platform.

Beyond her, a goods train is slowly approaching. Between her and the train,

two Maidservants are walking towards her. They turn their heads to look

at her, remarking on her dress.

MAIDSERVANT:

Look at that lace on her . . .

There is a rough bench near the end of the platform. Anna reaches it and

sits down. The two girls turn again to look back at her, and are struck

by the sight of Anna sitting alone in profile. The goods train reaches her

and the first wagon goes past her. The two girls stop and watch, vaguely

puzzled by her.

As they watch, the beautiful woman on the bench gets up and walks the

few steps to the edge of the wooden platform and into the path of the train,

disappearing from view between the wheels of one of the wagons.

EXT. (POKROVSKOE)--DAY

CLOSE--A SCYTHE CUTS A SWATHE THROUGH

STANDING HAY.

193

EXT. RAILS--THE RED HANDBAG

--lying separate against a rail, is clipped by a rolling train-wheel and

knocked aside, spilling its contents . . .

EXT. (POKROVSKOE)--DAY

A scythe cuts a swathe through standing hay.

EXT. HAYFIELD, POKROVSKOE, SAME TIME--DAY

It's nearly the last of the hay. The scythe is being swung by Theodore,

known from last year. He is one of a dozen Mowers. Levin is among them,

wielding his scythe. They have almost reached the end of the field, where the

last of the hay is being pitchforked up on to the last piled cart. Theodore's

daughter-in-law, now visibly pregnant, is still adept with a pitchfork.

It's a lowering thundery day at the end of summer.

LEVIN:

I'll be buying in feed before winter's over.

THEODORE:

(SCYTHING)

Well, you don't press people hard, but you

live rightly, for your soul, not your belly.

LEVIN:

My soul! What's that? I know what my

belly is. How do we know what's rightly?

I believe in reason.

194

THEODORE:

Reason? And was it reason that made you

chose a wife?

LEVIN:

(PAUSE)

No.

THEODORE:

You're a great one for reasoning, Konstantin

Dmitrich, but what's rightly is outside your

mathematic--that's what's rightly about it!

This stops Levin's scythe. He is illumined.

Theodore swings the scythe again. Levin walks away, gives his scythe to a

Labourer by the cart, and keeps walking. He quickens his pace.

EXT. POKROVSKOE--DAY

The first drops of rain, few and heavy, arrive.

EXT. HOUSE AND PORCH, POKROVSKOE, SAME

TIME--DAY

Cries of alarm and laughter burst from a Mushrooming Party approaching

the house. Children run ahead, the adults walk faster, then run, helping

with baby carriages and picking up small children and baskets of mush-

rooms . . . urged on from the porch by Agafia.

Levin, coming from the hay field, joins the rout.

195

The grown-ups are: Levin, Oblonsky, Dolly, the Oblonsky Nurse, Prince

and Princess Shcherbatsky.

The children are: Tanya, Grisha, Masha, Lili and Vasili. Dolly carries

her youngest. The children are eighteen months older than when we first

saw them.

PORCH:

The heavens open as everyone gets under cover.

LEVIN:

Where's Ekaterina Alexandrovna?

AGAFIA:

It's all right, the mistress is giving Mitya

his bath.

It is evident from her tone that Kitty and Agafia have made it up long ago.

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