The Overheated Denial — Anna Karenina

After Stiva blocks the carriage door until the third bell, Anna's first thought is relief: thank God it is over; tomorrow she will see Seryozha and Karenin and life will resume as usual. Anxiety remains. She arranges cushions, lamp, and English novel with meticulous care, then cannot settle into reading. Train noise, snow on the window, heat and cold, and fellow passengers distract her until rhythm lets her follow the plot.

Reading disgusts her because she wants to live, not watch others live. When the hero nears English happiness she feels sudden shame without knowing why, replays the ball and Vronsky's adoring face, and hears an inner voice say warm, very warm, hot. She laughs off the idea that anything special could exist with this officer boy, yet cannot read. Delight without cause, nerves strung tight, vivid half-light hallucinations follow: train direction uncertain, Annushka a stranger, peasant stoveheater becoming nightmare, then delightful sinking.

At a station she pulls herself together, asks Annushka for her cape, and steps into driving snow for air. Wind fights her at the door; she enjoys the struggle, clings to the cold post, and breathes frozen air under the lee of the carriages on the lighted platform.