280 281
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 immedi-
ately 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 sarcasti-
cally at the two officers who were at that instant leaving the room. And
he bent his long legs, swatched 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?”
“In 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, com-
manding 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 be-
cause 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 pas-
time, 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 mus-
tache, 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.)
“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