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TWENTY

‘Yes, yes, there are all sorts of improvements in everything now,’ said Oblonsky with a moist and beautiful yawn. ‘In the theatres for instance and all places of amusement. . . . Oh, oh, oh!’ he yawned. ‘Electric light everywhere. Oh, oh!’
‘Yes, electric light,’ said Levin. ‘Yes, by the by, where is Vronsky now?’ he asked, suddenly putting down the soap.
‘Vronsky?’ said Oblonsky, ceasing to yawn. ‘He is in Petersburg. He left soon after you did, and has not been in Moscow once since then. And do you know, Constantine, I will tell you quite frankly,’ he said, leaning his elbow on the table by his bed and supporting on his hand his good-looking, rosy1 face with its glittering, kind, and sleepy eyes, ‘it was your own fault. You were frightened of a rival. But as I told you then, I do not know who had the better chance. Why did you not make a dash for it? I told you at the time that . . .’ He yawned, but only with his jaw2, without opening his mouth.
‘Does he, or does he not, know that I proposed?’ thought Levin, looking at him. ‘Yes, there is something sly and diplomatic in his face,’ and feeling himself blush, he gazed in silence straight into Oblonsky’s eyes.
‘If there was anything on her side at that time, it was only the external attraction,’ continued Oblonsky. ‘You know his being a perfect aristocrat3 and his future position in Society had an effect, not on her but on her mother.’
Levin frowned. The insult of the refusal he had had to face burned in his heart like a fresh, newly-received wound. But he was at home and the walls of home are helpful.
‘Wait, wait,’ he began, interrupting Oblonsky. ‘You talk of his being an aristocrat. But I should like to ask you what is Vronsky’s or anyone else’s aristocracy that I should be slighted because of it? You consider Vronsky an aristocrat. I don’t. A man whose father crawled up from nothing by intrigues4 and whose mother has had relations with heavens knows whom. . . . No, pardon me, I consider myself and people like me aristocrats5: people who can point back to three or four honourable6 generations of their family, all with a high standard of education (talent and intelligence are a different matter), who have never cringed before anyone, never depended on anyone, but have lived as my father and my grandfather did. I know many such. You consider it mean for me to count the trees in my wood while you give Ryabinin thirty thousand roubles; but you will receive a Government grant and I don’t know what other rewards, and I shan’t, so I value what is mine by birth and labour. . . . We — and not those who only manage to exist by the bounty7 of the mighty8 of this world, and who can be bought for a piece of silver — are the aristocrats.’
‘But whom are you driving at? I agree with you,’ said Oblonsky sincerely and cheerfully, though he felt that Levin ranked him with those who could be bought for silver. Levin’s vehemence9 sincerely pleased him. ‘Whom are you driving at? Though much of what you say is not true of Vronsky, I am not speaking about that. I want to tell you candidly10 that if I were you, I’d come to Moscow now with me, and . . .’
‘No . . . I don’t know if you knew it or not and I don’t care, but I will tell you: I proposed and was refused, and your sister-in-law (Catherine Alexandrovna) is now only a painful and humiliating memory to me.’
‘Why? What nonsense!’
‘But don’t let us talk about it! Forgive me, please, if I have been rude to you,’ said Levin. Now that he had spoken out he became once more as he had been in the morning. ‘You are not angry with me, Stiva? Please don’t be angry,’ he said smiling, and took his hand.
‘Oh no, not at all! There was nothing to be angry about. I am glad we have had this explanation. And, do you know, the shooting in the early morning is often very good. Should we not go? I would not sleep again after it but go straight from there to the station.’
‘A capital idea!’

Chapter 18

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THOUGH Vronsky’s whole inner life was absorbed by his passion, his external life ran unalterably and inevitably along its former customary rails of social and regimental connections and interests. The interests of the regiment occupied an important place in his life, because he was fond of his regiment and still more because the regiment was fond of him. Not only were they fond of him, they respected him too and were proud of him: proud that this man, with his enormous wealth and excellent education and abilities,’ to whom the road to success of all kinds gratifying to ambition or vanity lay open, had disregarded all this, and of all life’s interests had nearest to his heart those of his regiment and his comrades. Vronsky was aware of this attitude of his comrades toward him, and besides liking the life felt bound to justify their view of him.
It goes without saying that he spoke to none of them about his love, nor did he betray himself even in the wildest drinking-bouts (indeed, he never drank so as to lose all self-control). And he silenced any of his thoughtless comrades who tried to hint at the liaison. But in spite of this, his love affair was known to all the town: everybody guessed more or less correctly what his relations with Anna Karenina were. Most of the young men envied him just on account of what was most trying in the affair, namely Karenin’s high rank and the consequent prominence of the affair in Society.
The majority of young women, who envied Anna and had long been weary of hearing her virtues praised, were pleased at what they guessed, and only waited to be sure that public opinion had turned before throwing the whole weight of their scorn at her. They already prepared lumps of mud to pelt her with in due time. Most of the older people and of those highly-placed regretted this impending social scandal.
Vronsky’s mother, on hearing of the matter, was at first pleased, both because in her opinion nothing gave such finishing touches to a brilliant young man as an intrigue in the best Society, and also because this Anna Karenina, who had so taken her fancy and who had talked so much about her little son, was after all such as the Countess Vronsky expected all handsome and well-bred women to be. But latterly she had heard that her son had refused a post of importance for his career, merely to remain with his regiment and be able to see Anna Karenina, and that exalted persons were dissatisfied with him for it, so she changed her opinion. She was also displeased because, from all she heard of it, this affair was not one of those brilliant, graceful, Society liaisons which she approved, but a desperate Werther-like passion which might lead him into doing something foolish. She had not seen him since his sudden departure from Moscow, and through her eldest son she sent him word to come and see her.
The elder brother was also dissatisfied with the younger. He did not distinguish what kind of love it was, great or small, passionate or passionless, guilty or pure (he himself, the father of a family, kept a ballet girl, and was therefore lenient in these matters): but he knew that it was a love affair which displeased those whom it is necessary to please, and he therefore disapproved of his brother’s conduct.
Besides his military and social interests Vronsky had another one, namely horses, of which he was passionately fond.
That year there was to be an officers’ steeplechase, and Vronsky had put down his name, bought an English thoroughbred mare, and, in spite of his love, was passionately, though restrainedly, concerned about the coming races.
The two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary he needed an occupation and an interest apart from his love, in which to refresh himself and find rest from the impressions which agitated him too violently.

Chapter 19

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ON the day of the Krasnoe Selo races Vronsky came earlier than usual to the regimental mess-room to eat his beefsteak. It was not necessary for him to train very strictly as his weight was just the regulation eleven-and-a-half stone, but he had to be careful not to get fatter and therefore avoided sweets and starchy foods. He sat waiting with his elbows on the table and his coat unbuttoned over a white waistcoat, and while waiting for the beefsteak he had ordered he looked at the pages of a French novel that lay on his plate. He only looked at the book in order not to have to talk to the officers who came in and out of the room while he was thinking.
He thought of Anna, who had promised to meet him after the races. But he had not seen her for three days and, as her husband had returned from abroad, he did not know whether she could keep the appointment to-day or not, and he did not know how to find out. He had seen her last at his cousin Betsy’s country house. He went to the Karenins’ country house as seldom as possible, but now he meant to go there and was considering how to do it.
‘Of course I can say that Betsy sent me to find out if she will be at the race. Yes, of course I will go,’ he decided, lifting his eyes from the book, and a vivid sense of the joy of seeing her made his face radiant.
‘Send to my house and tell them to harness three horses to the calèche at once,’ he said to the waiter who had brought him a beefsteak on a hot silver plate; and drawing the plate nearer to him he began to eat.
From the neighbouring billiard-room came the click of balls, talk, and laughter. Two officers appeared at the entrance door: one with a weak thin face, a young officer who had just joined the regiment from the Cadet Corps; the other a plump old officer with a bracelet on his arm and small eyes sunk in a bloated face.
Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and, as if he had not noticed them, turned his eyes on his book and began to eat and read at the same time.
‘What? Fortifying yourself for your job?’ asked the plump officer taking a seat beside him.
‘As you see,’ said Vronsky, frowning and wiping his mouth, without looking at the speaker.
‘Not afraid of getting fat?’ said the other, turning a chair round for the young officer.
‘What?’ said Vronsky frowning, making a grimace of disgust and showing his regular teeth.
‘Not afraid of getting fat?’
‘Waiter, sherry!’ said Vronsky without replying, and moving his book to the other side of his plate he continued to read.
The plump officer took the wine-list and turned to the young one.
‘You choose what we shall drink,’ said he, handing him the list and looking at him.
‘Suppose we have some Rhine wine,’ said the young one, turning his eyes timidly to Vronsky while his fingers tried to catch hold of his just budding moustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn round, he rose.
‘Let us go into the billiard-room,’ he said.
The plump officer got up obediently and they made their way toward the door.
At that moment Captain Yashvin, a tall man with a fine figure, entered the room, and having given a contemptuous backward nod to the two officers he came up to Vronsky.
‘Ah, here he is!’ he exclaimed, and with his big hand gave Vronsky a sharp slap on his shoulder-strap. Vronsky looked up angrily, but his face brightened at once into its characteristic look of quiet, firm kindliness.
‘That is wise, Alexis,’ said the captain in a loud baritone, ‘eat now, and drink one small glass.’
‘I don’t want to eat.’
‘There are the inseparables,’ added Yashvin, glancing ironically at the two officers who were just going out of the room. He sat down beside Vronsky, and his legs encased in tight riding-breeches, being too long for the size of the chair, bent at a sharp angle at the hip and knee-joints. ‘Why did you not come to the Krasnensky Theatre last night?’
‘I stayed late at the Tverskoys.’
‘Ah!’ said Yashvin.
Yashvin, a gambler, a rake, a man not merely without principles but with bad principles, was Vronsky’s best friend in the regiment. Vronsky liked him both for his extraordinary physical strength, which he chiefly demonstrated by his ability to drink like a fish and go without sleep without making any difference to him, and for the great mental power which was apparent in his relations with his commanding officers and comrades, who feared and respected him, and in his card-playing when he staked tens of thousands of roubles and, in spite of what he drank, always with such skill and decision that he was considered the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and liked Yashvin, particularly because he felt that the latter liked him, not for his name and money but for himself. Among all the people Vronsky knew Yashvin was the only one to whom he would have liked to talk about his love. He felt that Yashvin, though apparently despising all emotion, was the only one who could understand the power of the passion that now filled his whole life. Besides, he felt sure that Yashvin certainly found no pleasure in gossip and scandal, and understood his feeling in the right way — that is, knew and believed that this love was not a joke or an amusement, but something more serious and important.
Vronsky did not talk to him of his love, but was aware that he knew all about it and understood it rightly, and it was pleasant to him to read this in Yashvin’s eyes.
‘Ah, yes!’ he said when he heard that Vronsky had been at the Tverskoys; his black eyes sparkled and he began twisting his left moustache round into his mouth — a bad habit he had.
‘Well, and what were you doing last night? Winning?’ asked Vronsky.
‘Eight thousand. But three of them doubtful. I do not expect he will pay up.’
‘Well, then, you can afford to lose on me,’ said Vronsky, laughing. (Yashvin had staked heavily on Vronsky.)
‘I am sure not to lose. Makhotin is the only dangerous one.’ The conversation turned to the forecast of the day’s race, the only subject Vronsky could now think about.
‘Let us go. I have finished,’ said Vronsky, and he rose and moved toward the door. Yashvin rose also and stretched his great legs and long back.
‘It is too early for me to dine, but I must have a drink. I will come in a minute. Hallo, wine!’ he cried in his loud voice, which was so famous at drill, and here made the glasses tremble. ‘No, I do not want any,’ he shouted again. ‘You are going home and I’ll go with you.’
And he and Vronsky went out together.

Chapter 20

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VRONSKY had his quarters in a roomy, clean, Finnish peasant cottage, divided in two by a partition. Here in camp also, Petritsky was asleep when Vronsky and Yashvin entered.
‘Get up, you’ve slept enough!’ said Yashvin, stepping behind the partition and shaking by the shoulder the dishevelled Petritsky, who lay with his nose buried in the pillow. Petritsky suddenly sprang to his knees and looked round.
‘Your brother has been here,’ he said to Vronsky. ‘He woke me up, devil take him! . . . He said he would come back.’ And drawing up his blanket he threw himself back on his pillow. ‘Leave me alone, Yashvin!’ he said angrily to Yashvin, who was pulling the blanket off him. ‘Leave off!’ He turned and opened his eyes. ‘You had better tell me what to drink! I’ve such a horrid taste in my mouth that . . .’
‘Vodka is better than anything,’ said Yashvin in his base voice. ‘Tereshchenko! Vodka and pickled cucumbers for your master!’ he shouted, evidently enjoying the sound of his own voice.
‘Vodka, you think, eh?’ asked Petritsky, making a face and rubbing his eyes. ‘And will you have a drink? Let us have a drink together! Vronsky, will you have a drink?’ said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping himself to the arms in a rug of tiger-skin pattern.
He went to the partition door, held up his hands, and began singing in French, ‘ “There was a king in Thule!” Vronsky, will you have a drink?’
‘Get away!’ said Vronsky, as he put on the overcoat his servant had handed him.
‘Where to now?’ asked Yashvin. ‘Here are the horses,’ he added as he saw the calèche drive up to the door.
‘To the stables, and then I have to go to Bryansky about the horses,’ said Vronsky.
He had really promised to go to Bryansky’s, who lived seven miles from Peterhof, and pay him for the horses, and he hoped to make time to call there too. But his friends understood at once that it was not only there that he was going.
Petritsky, still singing, winked his eyes and pouted as if to say, ‘We know what sort of Bryansky it is.’
‘Mind and don’t be late!’ was all Yashvin said, and to change the subject he asked, ‘Is my roan doing well?’ looking out of the window at the middle horse, which he had sold to Vronsky.
‘Wait!’ shouted Petritsky to Vronsky, who was already going out. ‘Your brother left a letter for you and a note. Wait! Where are they?’
Vronsky stopped. ‘Well, where are they?’
‘Where are they? That is the question!’ declaimed Petritsky with solemnity, moving his finger upwards from his nose.
‘Come, tell me. This is stupid!’ said Vronsky, smiling.
‘I have not lighted the fire. They must be somewhere here.’
‘Enough of this! Where is the letter?’
‘No, really I have forgotten. Or was it a dream? Wait, wait. Why get angry? If you had emptied four bottles a head as we did last night, you would not know where you were lying. Wait a bit, I’ll remember it directly.’
Petritsky went behind the partition and lay down on his bed.
‘Wait! So I lay, and so he stood. Yes, yes, yes. . . . Here it is!’ and Petritsky drew the letter from under the mattress where he had put it.
Vronsky took the letter and his brother’s note. It was just what he had expected: a letter from his mother reproaching him for not having come to see her, and a note from his brother saying that they must talk things over. Vronsky knew that it all referred to the same subject. ‘What business is it of theirs?’ thought he, and crumpling up the letters he pushed them in between the buttons of his coat, to be read more attentively on the way. In the passage he met two officers, one of his own and one of another regiment.
Vronsky’s quarters were always the haunt of all the officers.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have to go to Peterhof.’
‘Has the mare come from Tsarskoe?’
‘Yes, but I have not seen her since she came.’
‘They say Makhotin’s Gladiator has gone lame.’
‘Nonsense! But how will you manage to ride through such mud?’ said the other officer.
‘These are the things to restore me!’ shouted Petritsky on seeing the new-comers. The orderly stood before him with vodka and pickled cucumbers on a tray. ‘Yashvin here has ordered vodka to freshen me up.’
‘Well, you did give it us last night,’ said one of the newcomers. ‘You did not let us sleep all night.’
‘Oh, but how we finished up!’ said Petritsky. ‘Volkov climbed out on to the roof and said he felt melancholy. I said, “Let us have music: a Funeral March!” And he fell asleep up there on the roof to the sound of the Funeral March.’
‘Drink, you must drink some vodka and then some seltzer water with plenty of lemon,’ said Yashvin, standing over Petritsky, like a mother urging her child to take its medicine.’ And after that a little champagne, about . . . a small bottle.’
‘Now that is reasonable! Wait, Vronsky, let us have a drink.’
‘No, good-bye, gentlemen. I am not drinking to-day.’
‘Why, because of the weight? Well then, we will drink by ourselves. Let’s have seltzers and lemons.’
‘Vronsky!’ shouted some one as Vronsky was already leaving.
‘What?’
‘You should have your hair cut; it will be too heavy, especially on the top.’
Vronsky was really beginning prematurely to get a little bald. He laughed merrily, showing his compact row of teeth, and drawing his cap over the bald patch, went out and got into the calèche.
‘To the stables!’ he said, and was taking out the letter to read, but then changed his mind, not wishing to be upset before examining his horse. ‘Later will do! . . .’