`Then you'll see my wife. I've written to her, but you'll see her first. Please tell her that they've seen me and that it's ``all right,'
as the English say. She'll understand. Oh, and be so good as to tell her I'm appointed member of the committee.... But she'll understand! You know, les petites misères de la vie humaine ,' he said, as it were apologizing to the Princess. `And Princess Miaghkaia - not Liza, but Bibish - is sending a thousand guns and twelve nurses, after all. Did I tell you?'
`Yes, I heard so,' answered Koznishev indifferently.
`It's a pity you're going away,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Tomorrow we're giving a dinner to two who are setting off - Dimer-Biartniansky from Peterburg and our Veslovsky, Grisha. They're both going. Veslovsky's only lately married. There's a fine fellow for you! Eh, Princess?' he turned to the lady.
The Princess looked at Koznishev without replying. But the fact that Sergei Ivanovich and the Princess seemed anxious to get rid of him did not in the least disconcert Stepan Arkadyevich. Smiling, he stared at the feather in the Princess's hat, and then about him as though he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady approaching with a collection box, he beckoned her up and put in a five-rouble note.
`I can never see these collection boxes unmoved while I've money in my pocket,' he said. `And how about today's telegram? Fine chaps those Montenegrins!'
`You don't say so!' he cried, when the Princess told him that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant Stepan Arkadyevich's face looked sad, but a minute later, when, stroking his whiskers and swinging as he walked, he went into the hall where Vronsky was, he had completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over his sister's corpse, and he saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend.
`With all his faults one can't refuse to do him justice,' said the Princess to Sergei Ivanovich, as soon as Stepan Arkadyevich had left them. `What a typically Russian, Slav nature! Only, I'm afraid it won't be pleasant for Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, I'm touched by that man's fate. Do talk to him a little on the way,' said the Princess.
`Yes, perhaps, if the occasion arises.'
`I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He's not merely going himself - he's taking a squadron at his own expense.'
`Yes, so I heard.'
A bell sounded. Everyone crowded to the doors.
`Here he is!' said the Princess, indicating Vronsky, who, with his mother on his arm walked by, wearing a long overcoat and wide-brimmed black hat. Oblonsky was walking beside him, talking eagerly of something.
Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevich was saying.
Probably on Oblonsky's pointing them out, he looked round in the direction where the Princess and Sergei Ivanovich were standing, and, without speaking, lifted his hat. His face, aged and worn by suffering, looked stony.
Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and disappeared into a compartment.
On the platform there rang out `God save the Czar,' then shouts of `Hurrah!' and `Jivio!' One of the volunteers, a tall, very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous, bowing and waving his felt hat and a nosegay over his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout man with a big beard, wearing a greasy forage cap.
[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]
TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 8, Chapter 03[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 3 Having said good-by to the Princess, Sergei Ivanovich was joined by Katavassov;together they got into a carriage full to overflowing, and the train started.
At Czaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing `Hail to Thee!' Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but Sergei Ivanovich paid no attention to them. He had had so much to do with the volunteers that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him. Katavassov, whose scientific work had prevented his having a chance of observing them hitherto, was very much interested in them and questioned Sergei Ivanovich.
Sergei Ivanovich advised him to go into the second class and talk to them himself. At the next station Katavassov acted on this suggestion.
At the first stop he moved into the second class and made the acquaintance of the volunteers. They were sitting in a corner of the carriage, talking loudly and obviously aware that the attention of the passengers, and of Katavassov, as he got in, was concentrated upon them. More loudly than all talked the tall, hollow-chested young man. He was unmistakably tipsy, and was relating some story that had occurred at his school. Facing him sat a middle-aged officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guards'
uniform. He was listening with a smile to the hollow-chested youth, and occasionally pulling him up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a portmanteau beside them. A fourth was asleep.
Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavassov learned that he was a wealthy Moscow merchant who had run through a large fortune before he was two-and-twenty. Katavassov did not like him, because he was unmanly and effeminate and sickly. He was obviously convinced, especially now after drinking, that he was performing a heroic action, and he bragged of it in the most unpleasant way.
The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant impression too upon Katavassov. He was, it seemed, a man who had tried everything.
He had been on a railway, had been a land steward, and had started factories, and he talked, quite without necessity, of everything, and used learned expressions quite inappropriately.