ANNA KARENINA (Collector's Edition). Leo Tolstoy

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      Chapter 19

      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.