Anna Karenina - Part 7

Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members and

visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not been at

the club for a very long while--not since he lived in Moscow,

when he was leaving the university and going into society. He

remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but

he had completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in

old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide semicircular

court and getting out of the sledge, he mounted the steps, and

the hall porter, adorned with a crossway scarf, noiselessly

opened the door to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the

porter's room the cloaks and galoshes of members who thought it

less trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard the

mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he ascended the

easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the statue on the landing, and

the third porter at the top doors, a familiar figure grown older,

in the club livery, opening the door without haste or delay, and

scanning the visitors as they passed in--Levin felt the old

impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of

repose, comfort, and propriety.

"Your hat, please," the porter said to Levin, who forgot the club

rule to leave his hat in the porter's room. "Long time since

you've been. The prince put your name down yesterday. Prince

Stepan Arkadyevitch is not here yet."

The porter did not only know Levin, but also all his ties and

relationships, and so immediately mentioned his intimate friends.

Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the

room partitioned on the right, where a man sits at the fruit

buffet, Levin overtook an old man walking slowly in, and entered

the dining room full of noise and people.

He walked along the tables, almost all full, and looked at the

visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and young; some he

knew a little, some intimate friends. There was not a single

cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their

cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and

were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material

blessings of life. Sviazhsky was here and Shtcherbatsky,

Nevyedovsky and the old prince, and Vronsky and Sergey

Ivanovitch.

"Ah! why are you late?" the prince said smiling, and giving him

his hand over his own shoulder. "How's Kitty?" he added,

smoothing out the napkin he had tucked in at his waistcoat

buttons.

"All right; they are dining at home, all the three of them."