These two passions did not interfere with one another. On the contrary,
he needed occupation and distraction quite apart from his love, so as to
recruit and rest himself from the violent emotions that agitated him.
Chapter 19
On the day of the races at Krasnoe Selo, Vronsky had come earlier than
usual to eat beefsteak in the common messroom of the regiment. He had no
need to be strict with himself, as he had very quickly been brought down to
the required light weight; but still he had to avoid gaining flesh, and so he
eschewed farinaceous and sweet dishes. He sat with his coat unbuttoned
over a white waistcoat, resting both elbows on the table, and while waiting
for the steak he had ordered he looked at a French novel that lay open on
his plate. He was only looking at the book to avoid conversation with the
officers coming in and out; he was thinking.
He was thinking of Anna’s promise to see him that day after the races.
But he had not seen her for three days, and as her husband had just returned
from abroad, he did not know whether she would be able to meet him today
or not, and he did not know how to find out. He had had his last interview
with her at his cousin Betsy’s summer villa. He visited the Karenins’
summer villa as rarely as possible. Now he wanted to go there, and he
pondered the question how to do it.
“Of course I shall say Betsy has sent me to ask whether she’s coming to
the races. Of course, I’ll go,” he decided, lifting his head from the book.
And as he vividly pictured the happiness of seeing her, his face lighted up.
“Send to my house, and tell them to have out the carriage and three
horses as quick as they can,” he said to the servant, who handed him the
steak on a hot silver dish, and moving the dish up he began eating.
From the billiard room next door came the sound of balls knocking, of
talk and laughter. Two officers appeared at the entrance-door: one, a young
fellow, with a feeble, delicate face, who had lately joined the regiment from
the Corps of Pages; the other, a plump, elderly officer, with a bracelet on his
wrist, and little eyes, lost in fat.
Vronsky glanced at them, frowned, and looking down at his book as
though he had not noticed them, he proceeded to eat and read at the same
time.
“What? Fortifying yourself for your work?” said the plump officer,
sitting down beside him.
“As you see,” responded Vronsky, knitting his brows, wiping his mouth,
and not looking at the officer.
“So you’re not afraid of getting fat?” said the latter, turning a chair round
for the young officer.
“What?” said Vronsky angrily, making a wry face of disgust, and
showing his even teeth.
“You’re not afraid of getting fat?”
“Waiter, sherry!” said Vronsky, without replying, and moving the book to
the other side of him, he went on reading.
The plump officer took up the list of wines and turned to the young
officer.
“You choose what we’re to drink,” he said, handing him the card, and
looking at him.
“Rhine wine, please,” said the young officer, stealing a timid glance at
Vronsky, and trying to pull his scarcely visible mustache. Seeing that
Vronsky did not turn round, the young officer got up.
“Let’s go into the billiard room,” he said.
The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved towards the door.
At that moment there walked into the room the tall and well-built Captain
Yashvin. Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two officers, he went
up to Vronsky.
“Ah! here he is!” he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on his
epaulet. Vronsky looked round angrily, but his face lighted up immediately
with his characteristic expression of genial and manly serenity.
“That’s it, Alexey,” said the captain, in his loud baritone. “You must just
eat a mouthful, now, and drink only one tiny glass.”
“Oh, I’m not hungry.”
“There go the inseparables,” Yashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically at
the two officers who were at that instant leaving the room. And he bent his
long legs, swathed in tight riding breeches, and sat down in the chair, too
low for him, so that his knees were cramped up in a sharp angle.
“Why didn’t you turn up at the Red Theater yesterday? Numerova wasn’t
at all bad. Where were you?”
“I was late at the Tverskoys’,” said Vronsky.
“Ah!” responded Yashvin.
Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral
principles, but of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky’s greatest friend
in the regiment. Vronsky liked him both for his exceptional physical
strength, which he showed for the most part by being able to drink like a
fish, and do without sleep without being in the slightest degree affected by
it; and for his great strength of character, which he showed in his relations
with his comrades and superior officers, commanding both fear and respect,
and also at cards, when he would play for tens of thousands and however
much he might have drunk, always with such skill and decision that he was
reckoned the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and liked
Yashvin particularly because he felt Yashvin liked him, not for his name and
his money, but for himself. And of all men he was the only one with whom
Vronsky would have liked to speak of his love. He felt that Yashvin, in spite
of his apparent contempt for every sort of feeling, was the only man who
could, so he fancied, comprehend the intense passion which now filled his
whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Yashvin, as it was, took no delight
in gossip and scandal, and interpreted his feeling rightly, that is to say, knew
and believed that this passion was not a jest, not a pastime, but something
more serious and important.
Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he was aware that
he knew all about it, and that he put the right interpretation on it, and he
was glad to see that in his eyes.
“Ah! yes,” he said, to the announcement that Vronsky had been at the
Tverskoys’; and his black eyes shining, he plucked at his left mustache, and
began twisting it into his mouth, a bad habit he had.
“Well, and what did you do yesterday? Win anything?” asked Vronsky.
“Eight thousand. But three don’t count; he won’t pay up.”
“Oh, then you can afford to lose over me,” said Vronsky, laughing.
(Yashvin had bet heavily on Vronsky in the races.)
