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“No, I don’t know him.”
“You don’t say so! Well, Prince Tchetchensky is a well-known
figure. No matter, though. He’s always playing billiards here. Only
three years ago he was not a shlupik and kept up his spirits and even
used to call other people shlupiks. But one day he turns up, and our
porter...you know Vassily? Why, that fat one; he’s famous for his bon
mots. And so Prince Tchetchensky asks him, ‘Come, Vassily, who’s
here? Any shlupiks here yet?’ And he says, ‘You’re the third.’ Yes, my
dear boy, that he did!”
Talking and greeting the friends they met, Levin and the prince
walked through all the rooms: the great room where tables had already
been set, and the usual partners were playing for small stakes; the
divan room, where they were playing chess, and Sergey Ivanovitch was
sitting talking to somebody; the billiard room, where, about a sofa in a
recess, there was a lively party drinking champagne—Gagin was one
of them. They peeped into the “infernal regions,” where a good many
men were crowding round one table, at which Yashvin was sitting.
Trying not to make a noise, they walked into the dark reading room,
where under the shaded lamps there sat a young man with a wrathful
countenance, turning over one journal after another, and a bald general
buried in a book. They went, too, into what the prince called the
intellectual room, where three gentlemen were engaged in a heated
discussion of the latest political news.
“Prince, please come, we’re ready,” said one of his card party, who
had come to look for him, and the prince went off. Levin sat down and
listened, but recalling all the conversation of the morning he felt all of
a sudden fearfully bored. He got up hurriedly, and went to look for
Oblonsky and Turovtsin, with whom it had been so pleasant.
Turovtsin was one of the circle drinking in the billiard room, and
Stepan Arkadyevitch was talking with Vronsky near the door at the
farther corner of the room.
“It’s not that she’s dull; but this undefined, this unsettled position,”
Levin caught, and he was hurrying away, but Stepan Arkadyevitch
called to him.
“Levied” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, and Levin noticed that his
eyes were not full of tears exactly, but moist, which always happened
when he had been drinking, or when he was touched. Just now it was
due to both causes. “Levin, don’t go,” he said, and he warmly squeezed
his arm above the elbow, obviously not at all wishing to let him go.
“This is a true friend of mine—almost my greatest friend,” he said
to Vronsky. “You have become even closer and dearer to me. And I
want you, and I know you ought, to be friends, and great friends,
because you’re both splendid fellows.”
“Well, there’s nothing for us now but to kiss and be friends,” Vronsky
said, with good-natured playfulness, holding out his hand.
Levin quickly took the offered hand, and pressed it warmly.
“I’m very, very glad,” said Levin.
“Waiter, a bottle of champagne,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“And I’m very glad,” said Vronsky.
But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s desire, and their own desire,
they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it.
“Do you know, he has never met Anna?” Stepan Arkadyevitch
said to Vronsky. “And I want above everything to take him to see her.
Let us go, Levin!”
“Really?” said Vronsky. “She will be very glad to see you. I should
be going home at once,” he added, “but I’m worried about Yashvin, and
I want to stay on till he finishes.”
“Why, is he losing?”