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“Ah, I’m very glad!”
The colonel, Demin, had taken a large country house. The whole
party were in the wide lower balcony. In the courtyard the first objects
that met Vronsky’s eyes were a band of singers in white linen coats,
standing near a barrel of vodka, and the robust, good-humored figure
of the colonel surrounded by officers. He had gone out as far as the
first step of the balcony and was loudly shouting across the band that
played Offenbach’s quadrille, waving his arms and giving some orders
to a few soldiers standing on one side. A group of soldiers, a quarter-
master, and several subalterns came up to the balcony with Vronsky.
The colonel returned to the table, went out again onto the steps with a
tumbler in his hand, and proposed the toast, “To the health of our
former comrade, the gallant general, Prince Serpuhovskoy. Hurrah!”
The colonel was followed by Serpuhovskoy, who came out onto the
steps smiling, with a glass in his hand.
“You always get younger, Bondarenko,” he said to the rosy-checked,
smart-looking quartermaster standing just before him, still youngish
looking though doing his second term of service.
It was three years since Vronsky had seen Serpuhovskoy. He looked
more robust, had let his whiskers grow, but was still the same graceful
creature, whose face and figure were even more striking from their
softness and nobility than their beauty. The only change Vronsky
detected in him was that subdued, continual radiance of beaming
content which settles on the faces of men who are successful and are
sure of the recognition of their success by everyone. Vronsky knew that
radiant air, and immediately observed it in Serpuhovskoy.
As Serpuhovskoy came down the steps he saw Vronsky. A smile of
pleasure lighted up his face. He tossed his head upwards and waved
the glass in his hand, greeting Vronsky, and showing him by the ges-
ture that he could not come to him before the quartermaster, who stood
craning forward his lips ready to be kissed.
“Here he is!” shouted the colonel. “Yashvin told me you were in
one of your gloomy tempers.”
Serpuhovskoy kissed the moist, fresh lips of the gallant-looking
quartermaster, and wiping his mouth with his handkerchief, went up to
Vronsky.
“How glad I am!” he said, squeezing his hand and drawing him on
one side.
“You look after him,” the colonel shouted to Yashvin, pointing to
Vronsky; and he went down below to the soldiers.
“Why weren’t you at the races yesterday? I expected to see you
there,” said Vronsky, scrutinizing Serpuhovskoy.
“I did go, but late. I beg your pardon,” he added, and he turned to
the adjutant: “Please have this divided from me, each man as much as
it runs to.” And he hurriedly took notes for three hundred roubles from
his pocketbook, blushing a little.
“Vronsky! Have anything to eat or drink?” asked Yashvin. “Hi,
something for the count to eat! Ah, here it is: have a glass!”
The fete at the colonel’s lasted a long while. There was a great deal
of drinking. They tossed Serpuhovskoy in the air and caught him again
several times. Then they did the same to the colonel. Then, to the
accompaniment of the band, the colonel himself danced with Petritsky.
Then the colonel, who began to show signs of feebleness, sat down on
a bench in the courtyard and began demonstrating to Yashvin the
superiority of Russia over Poland, especially in cavalry attack, and there
was a lull in the revelry for a moment. Serpuhovskoy went into the
house to the bathroom to wash his hands and found Vronsky there;
Vronsky was drenching his head with water. He had taken off his coat