Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [106]
XIX
On the day of the Krasnoe Selo26 races, Vronsky came earlier than usual to eat his beefsteak in the common room of the regimental mess. He did not need to maintain himself too strictly, because his weight was exactly the regulation hundred and sixty pounds; but he also had not to gain any weight, and so he avoided starches and sweets. He was sitting in a jacket unbuttoned over a white waistcoat, both elbows leaning on the table, and, while awaiting the beefsteak he had ordered, was looking into a French novel that lay open on his plate. He looked into the book only to avoid having to talk with the officers going in and out while he was thinking.
He was thinking that Anna had promised to arrange to meet him that day after the races. But he had not seen her for three days, and, since her husband had returned from abroad, he did not know whether it was possible that day or not, and did not know how to find it out. The last time he had seen her was at his cousin Betsy’s country house. To the Karenins’ country house he went as seldom as possible. Now he wanted to go there and was pondering the question of how to do it.
‘Of course, I can say that Betsy sent me to ask if she was coming to the races. Of course I’ll go,’ he decided to himself, raising his head from the book. And, as he vividly pictured to himself the happiness of seeing her, his face lit up.
‘Send to my place and tell them to harness the carriage quickly,’ he said to the servant who brought him the beefsteak on a hot silver dish, and, drawing the dish towards him, he began to eat.
From the next room came talk and laughter and the click of billiard balls. At the entrance two officers appeared: one young, with a weak, thin face, who had come to the regiment from the Corps of Pages not long ago; the other a plump old officer with a bracelet on his wrist and puffy little eyes.
Vronsky glanced at them, frowned and, as if not noticing them, looked sideways at the book and began to eat and read at the same time.
‘Fortifying yourself before work?’ said the plump officer, sitting down near him.
‘As you see,’ said Vronsky, frowning and wiping his mouth without looking at him.
‘Not afraid of gaining weight?’ the first said, offering the young officer a chair.
‘What?’ Vronsky said angrily, making a grimace of disgust and showing his solid row of teeth.
‘Not afraid of gaining weight?’
‘Sherry, boy!’ Vronsky said without replying, and, moving the book to the other side, he went on reading.
The plump officer took the wine list and turned to the young officer.
‘You choose what we’ll drink,’ he said, handing him the list and looking at him.
‘Maybe Rhine wine,’ the young officer said, timidly casting a sidelong glance at Vronsky and trying to grasp his barely grown moustache in his fingers. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn, the young officer stood up.
‘Let’s go to the billiard room,’ he said.
The plump officer obediently stood up, and they went to the door.
Just then the tall and well-built cavalry captain Yashvin came into the room and, giving the two officers a scornful toss of the head, went over to Vronsky.
‘Ah, here he is!’ he cried, slapping him hard on the epaulette with his big hand. Vronsky turned angrily, but his face at once lit up with his own special, calm and firm gentleness.
‘That’s wise, Alyosha,’ the captain said in a loud baritone. ‘Eat now and drink a little glass.’
‘I don’t want to eat.’
‘There go the inseparables,’ Yashvin added, looking mockingly at the two officers who at that moment were leaving the room. And he sat down beside Vronsky, his thighs and shins, much too long for the height of the chairs, bending at a sharp angle in their tight breeches. ‘Why didn’t you come to the Krasnoe Theatre last night? Numerova wasn’t bad at all. Where were you?’
‘I stayed late at the Tverskoys’,’ replied Vronsky.
‘Ah!’ responded Yashvin.
Yashvin, a gambler, a carouser, a man not merely without any principles, but with immoral principles - Yashvin was Vronsky’s