`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 Arkadyevich 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 going to hurry away, but Stepan Arkadyevich called him.
`Levin!' said Stepan Arkadyevich; 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. Today 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 also are still 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 squeezed it warmly.
`I'm very, very glad,' said Levin.
`Waiter, a bottle of champagne,' said Stepan Arkadyevich.
`And I'm very glad,' said Vronsky.
But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevich'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 Arkadyevich 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 Iashvin, and Iwant to stay on till he finishes.'
`Why, is he losing?'
`He keeps losing, and I'm the only friend that can restrain him.'
`Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play? Capital!'
said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Get the table ready,' he said to the marker.
`It has been ready a long while,' answered the marker, who had already set the balls in a ********, and was knocking the red one about for his own diversion.
`Well, let us begin.'
After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gaghin's table, and at Stepan Arkadyevich's suggestion Levin took a hand in the game. Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were incessantly coming up to him. Every now and then he went to the `infernal' to keep an eye on Iashvin. Levin was enjoying a delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the morning. He was glad that all hostility was at an end with Vronsky, and the sense of peace, decorum and comfort never left him.
When the game was over, Stepan Arkadyevich took Levin's arm.
`Well, let us go to Anna's, then. At once? Eh? She is at home.
I promised her long ago to bring you. Where were you intending to spend the evening?'
`Oh, nowhere specially. I promised Sviiazhsky to go to the Society of Agriculture. By all means, let us go,' said Levin.
`Very good; come along. Find out if my carriage is here,' Stepan Arkadyevich said to the waiter.
Levin went up to the table, paid the forty roubles he had lost;paid his bill, the amount of which was in some mysterious way ascertained by the little old waiter who stood at the counter, and, swinging his arms, he walked through all the rooms to the exit.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 7, Chapter 09[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 9 `Oblonsky's carriage!' the porter shouted in an angry bass. The carriage drove up and both got in. It was only for the first few moments, while the carriage was driving out of the clubhouse gates, that Levin was still under the influence of the club atmosphere of repose, comfort, and unimpeachable good form. But as soon as the carriage drove out into the street, and he felt it jolting over the uneven road, heard the angry shout of a driver coming toward them, saw in the uncertain light the red blind of a tavern and the shops, this impression was dissipated, and he began to think over his actions, and to wonder whether he was doing right in going to see Anna.
What would Kitty say? But Stepan Arkadyevich gave him no time for reflection, and, as though divining his doubts, he dispersed them.
`How glad I am,' he said, `that you should know her! You know Dolly has long wished for it. And Lvov's been to see her, and often goes.
Though she is my sister,' Stepan Arkadyevich pursued, `I don't hesitate to say that she's a remarkable woman.... But you will see. Her position is very painful, especially now.'
`Why especially now?'
`We are carrying on negotiations with her husband about a divorce.
And he's agreed; but there are difficulties in regard to the son, and the business, which ought to have been arranged long ago, has been dragging on for three months past. As soon as the divorce is over, she will marry Vronsky. How stupid these old ritual forms are - ``Isaiah, rejoice!' -which no one believes in, and which only prevent people being comfortable!'
Stepan Arkadyevich put in. `Well, then their position will be as regular as mine, as yours.'
`What is the difficulty?' said Levin.