Anna Karenina Page #44

INT. NURSERY, POKROVSKOE, SAME TIME--DAY

Rain on the window and on the roof. The rain is so loud that it is the

foreground sound in the scene; and the dialogue, while we can pick it out

without difficulty, is the background sound.

Levin enters, wet.

Dmitri (Mitya), two months old, is lying on his back in a basin, supported

by Kitty's palm under his head. Kitty squeezes a sponge over his body,

which he likes.

196

LEVIN:

I came looking for you . . . I understood

something . . .

KITTY:

And what was that?

Kitty lifts Mitya onto a towel on her lap, wraps him and gives him to

Levin, who is enchanted by him.

LEVIN:

He smiled at me.

KITTY:

(UNCONSCIOUSLY ABSURD)

He's very advanced for his age.

She picks up her rings to replace them on her fingers.

KITTY (CONT'D)

What did you understand?

But the baby starts to yell for the breast. Kitty starts to undo her blouse.

Levin shakes his head: he'll tell her some other time, or maybe not.

EXT. PORCH, POKROVSKOE--NIGHT

The storm has passed. Everything drips.

Oblonsky comes from inside and lights a cigar. Indistinctly seen and heard

through the window, the Mushrooming Party occupies the dining room.

Oblonsky smokes thoughtfully, melancholy.

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EXT. FLOWERING MEADOW--DAY

SPRINGTIME:

Baby Anya, old enough to stagger on her feet, wavers through wild flowers

half her height. She falls over, almost disappearing.

This is being watched, with a mixture more pleasure than pain, by Kar-

enin. He is in early retirement, sitting with a book in a garden seat, dressed

comfortably under a straw hat. There is the SOUND OVER of people

playing croquet.

Serozha, aged ten, enters his view, going to Anya to haul her upright, and

keeping hold of her hand as she staggers on. Karenin's pleasure increases

slightly.

OVER this, the growing SOUND of a battlefield.

EXT. BATTLEFIELD (BALKANS)--DAY

CLOSE:

Vronsky, in an unfamiliar uniform, sabre pointing forward, is mounted at

full gallop with the SOUND of the charge all around him in the smoke and

noise of guns. Something heavy and invisible with its own SOUND--like

the flap of an awning--takes him from his horse into the air and gone,

leaving spouts of blood poised for an instant in the smoke.

EXT. FLOWERING MEADOW, AS BEFORE

NATURAL SOUND:

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Serozha picks up Anya like a parcel under his arm and walks on with her

towards the indistinct figures of Croquet Players strolling in the heat haze,

a couple of parasols held aloft.

FADE TO BLACK.

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