Anna Karenina - Part 7

"Who's that?" asked Levin.

"You met him once at my place, don't you remember? A

good-natured fellow."

Levin did the same as Stepan Arkadyevitch and took the glass.

Stepan Arkadyevitch's anecdote too was very amusing. Levin told

his story, and that too was successful. Then they talked of

horses, of the races, of what they had been doing that day, and

of how smartly Vronsky's Atlas had won the first prize. Levin

did not notice how the time passed at dinner.

"Ah! and here they are!" Stepan Arkadyevitch said towards the end

of dinner, leaning over the back of his chair and holding out his

hand to Vronsky, who came up with a tall officer of the Guards.

Vronsky's face too beamed with the look of good-humored enjoyment

that was general in the club. He propped his elbow playfully on

Stepan Arkadyevitch's shoulder, whispering something to him, and

he held out his hand to Levin with the same good-humored smile.

"Very glad to meet you," he said. "I looked out for you at the

election, but I was told you had gone away."

"Yes, I left the same day. We've just been talking of your

horse. I congratulate you," said Levin. "It was very rapidly

run."

"Yes; you've race horses too, haven't you?"

"No, my father had; but I remember and know something about it."

"Where have you dined?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"We were at the second table, behind the columns."

"We've been celebrating his success," said the tall colonel.

"It's his second Imperial prize. I wish I might have the luck at

cards he has with horses. Well, why waste the precious time?

I'm going to the 'infernal regions,'" added the colonel, and he

walked away.

"That's Yashvin," Vronsky said in answer to Turovtsin, and he sat

down in the vacated seat beside them. He drank the glass offered

him, and ordered a bottle of wine. Under the influence of the

club atmosphere or the wine he had drunk, Levin chatted away to

Vronsky of the best breeds of cattle, and was very glad not to

feel the slightest hostility to this man. He even told him,

among other things, that he had heard from his wife that she had

met him at Princess Marya Borissovna's.

"Ah, Princess Marya Borissovna, she's exquisite!" said Stepan

Arkadyevitch, and he told an anecdote about her which set them

all laughing. Vronsky particularly laughed with such

simplehearted amusement that Levin felt quite reconciled to him.