“No chance of my losing. Mahotin’s the only one that’s risky.”
And the conversation passed to forecasts of the coming race, the only
thing Vronsky could think of just now.
“Come along, I’ve finished,” said Vronsky, and getting up he went to the
door. Yashvin got up too, stretching his long legs and his long back.
“It’s too early for me to dine, but I must have a drink. I’ll come along
directly. Hi, wine!” he shouted, in his rich voice, that always rang out so
loudly at drill, and set the windows shaking now.
“No, all right,” he shouted again immediately after. “You’re going home,
so I’ll go with you.”
And he walked out with Vronsky.
Chapter 20
Vronsky was staying in a roomy, clean, Finnish hut, divided into two by a
partition. Petritsky lived with him in camp too. Petritsky was asleep when
Vronsky and Yashvin came into the hut.
“Get up, don’t go on sleeping,” said Yashvin, going behind the partition
and giving Petritsky, who was lying with ruffled hair and with his nose in
the pillow, a prod on the shoulder.
Petritsky jumped up suddenly onto his knees and looked round.
“Your brother’s been here,” he said to Vronsky. “He waked me up, damn
him, and said he’d look in again.” And pulling up the rug he flung himself
back on the pillow. “Oh, do shut up, Yashvin!” he said, getting furious with
Yashvin, who was pulling the rug off him. “Shut up!” He turned over and
opened his eyes. “You’d better tell me what to drink; such a nasty taste in
my mouth, that….”
“Brandy’s better than anything,” boomed Yashvin. “Tereshtchenko!
brandy for your master and cucumbers,” he shouted, obviously taking
pleasure in the sound of his own voice.
“Brandy, do you think? Eh?” queried Petritsky, blinking and rubbing his
eyes. “And you’ll drink something? All right then, we’ll have a drink
together! Vronsky, have a drink?” said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping
the tiger-skin rug round him. He went to the door of the partition wall,
raised his hands, and hummed in French, “There was a king in Thule.”
“Vronsky, will you have a drink?”
“Go along,” said Vronsky, putting on the coat his valet handed to him.
“Where are you off to?” asked Yashvin. “Oh, here are your three horses,”
he added, seeing the carriage drive up.
“To the stables, and I’ve got to see Bryansky, too, about the horses,” said
Vronsky.
Vronsky had as a fact promised to call at Bryansky’s, some eight miles
from Peterhof, and to bring him some money owing for some horses; and
he hoped to have time to get that in too. But his comrades were at once
aware that he was not only going there.
Petritsky, still humming, winked and made a pout with his lips, as though
he would say: “Oh, yes, we know your Bryansky.”
“Mind you’re not late!” was Yashvin’s only comment; and to change the
conversation: “How’s my roan? is he doing all right?” he inquired, looking
out of the window at the middle one of the three horses, which he had sold
Vronsky.
“Stop!” cried Petritsky to Vronsky as he was just going out. “Your
brother left a letter and a note for you. Wait a bit; where are they?”
Vronsky stopped.
“Well, where are they?”
“Where are they? That’s just the question!” said Petritsky solemnly,
moving his forefinger upwards from his nose.
“Come, tell me; this is silly!” said Vronsky smiling.
“I have not lighted the fire. Here somewhere about.”
“Come, enough fooling! Where is the letter?”
“No, I’ve forgotten really. Or was it a dream? Wait a bit, wait a bit! But
what’s the use of getting in a rage. If you’d drunk four bottles yesterday as I
did you’d forget where you were lying. Wait a bit, I’ll remember!”
Petritsky went behind the partition and lay down on his bed.
“Wait a bit! This was how I was lying, and this was how he was standing.
Yes—yes—yes…. Here it is!”—and Petritsky pulled a letter out from under
the mattress, where he had hidden it.
Vronsky took the letter and his brother’s note. It was the letter he was
expecting—from his mother, reproaching him for not having been to see her
—and the note was from his brother to say that he must have a little talk
with him. Vronsky knew that it was all about the same thing. “What
business is it of theirs!” thought Vronsky, and crumpling up the letters he
thrust them between the buttons of his coat so as to read them carefully on
the road. In the porch of the hut he was met by two officers; one of his
regiment and one of another.
Vronsky’s quarters were always a meeting place for all the officers.
“Where are you off to?”
“I must go to Peterhof.”
“Has the mare come from Tsarskoe?”
“Yes, but I’ve not seen her yet.”
“They say Mahotin’s Gladiator’s lame.”
“Nonsense! But however are you going to race in this mud?” said the
other.
“Here are my saviors!” cried Petritsky, seeing them come in. Before him
stood the orderly with a tray of brandy and salted cucumbers. “Here’s
Yashvin ordering me to drink a pick-me-up.”
“Well, you did give it to us yesterday,” said one of those who had come
in; “you didn’t let us get a wink of sleep all night.”
“Oh, didn’t we make a pretty finish!” said Petritsky. “Volkov climbed
onto the roof and began telling us how sad he was. I said: ‘Let’s have
music, the funeral march!’ He fairly dropped asleep on the roof over the
funeral march.”
“Drink it up; you positively must drink the brandy, and then seltzer water
and a lot of lemon,” said Yashvin, standing over Petritsky like a mother
making a child take medicine, “and then a little champagne—just a small
bottle.”
“Come, there’s some sense in that. Stop a bit, Vronsky. We’ll all have a
drink.”
“No; good-bye all of you. I’m not going to drink today.”
“Why, are you gaining weight? All right, then we must have it alone.
Give us the seltzer water and lemon.”
