Anna Karenina - Part 8

Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had only just reached the station

of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy and full of

people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was

following with their things, they saw a party of volunteers

driving up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets of

flowers, and followed by the rushing crowd they went into the

station.

One of the ladies, who had met the volunteers, came out of the

hall and addressed Sergey Ivanovitch.

"You too come to see them off?" she asked in French.

"No, I'm going away myself, princess. To my brother's for a

holiday. Do you always see them off?" said Sergey Ivanovitch with

a hardly perceptible smile.

"Oh, that would be impossible!" answered the princess. "Is it

true that eight hundred have been sent from us already?

Malvinsky wouldn't believe me."

"More than eight hundred. If you reckon those who have been sent

not directly from Moscow, over a thousand," answered Sergey

Ivanovitch.

"There! That's just what I said!" exclaimed the lady. "And it's

true too, I suppose, that more than a million has been

subscribed?"

"Yes, princess."

"What do you say to today's telegram? Beaten the Turks again."

"Yes, so I saw," answered Sergey Ivanovitch. They were speaking

of the last telegram stating that the Turks had been for three

days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and

that tomorrow a decisive engagement was expected.

"Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go,

and they've made some difficulty, I don't know why. I meant to

ask you; I know him; please write a note about his case. He's

being sent by Countess Lidia Ivanovna."

Sergey Ivanovitch asked for all the details the princess knew

about the young man, and going into the first-class waiting-room,

wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of

absence depended, and handed it to the princess.

"You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one...is going by this

train?" said the princess with a smile full of triumph and

meaning, when he found her again and gave her the letter.

"I had heard he was going, but I did not know when. By this

train?"

"I've seen him. He's here: there's only his mother seeing him

off. It's the best thing, anyway, that he could do."

"Oh, yes, of course."

While they were talking the crowd streamed by them into the

dining room. They went forward too, and heard a gentleman with a

glass in his hand delivering a loud discourse to the volunteers.

"In the service of religion, humanity, and our brothers," the

gentleman said, his voice growing louder and louder; "to this

great cause mother Moscow dedicates you with her blessing.

_Jivio!_" he concluded, loudly and tearfully.