Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART TWO CHAPTER 19
“Rhine wine, please,” said the young officer, stealing a timid glance at Vronsky,
and trying to pull his scarcely visible mustache. Seeing that Vronsky did not turn
round, the young officer got up.
“Let’s go into the billiard room,” he said.
The plump officer rose submissively, and they moved towards the door.
At that moment there walked into the room the tall and well-built Captain
Yashvin. Nodding with an air of lofty contempt to the two officers, he went up
to Vronsky.
“Ah! here he is!” he cried, bringing his big hand down heavily on his epaulet.
Vronsky looked round angrily, but his face lighted up immediately with his characteristic
expression of genial and manly serenity.
“That’s it, Alexey,” said the captain, in his loud baritone. “You must just eat a
mouthful, now, and drink only one tiny glass.”
“Oh, I’m not hungry.”
“There go the inseparables,” Yashvin dropped, glancing sarcastically at the two officers
who were at that instant leaving the room. And he bent his long legs, swathed
in tight riding breeches, and sat down in the chair, too low for him, so that his knees
were cramped up in a sharp angle.
“Why didn’t you turn up at the Red Theater yesterday? Numerova wasn’t at all
bad. Where were you?”
“I was late at the Tverskoys’,” said Vronsky.
“Ah!” responded Yashvin.
Yashvin, a gambler and a rake, a man not merely without moral principles, but
of immoral principles, Yashvin was Vronsky’s greatest friend in the regiment. Vronsky
liked him both for his exceptional physical strength, which he showed for the
most part by being able to drink like a fish, and do without sleep without being in
the slightest degree affected by it; and for his great strength of character, which he
showed in his relations with his comrades and superior officers, commanding both
fear and respect, and also at cards, when he would play for tens of thousands and
however much he might have drunk, always with such skill and decision that he was
reckoned the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and liked Yashvin
particularly because he felt Yashvin liked him, not for his name and his money, but
for himself. And of all men he was the only one with whom Vronsky would have
liked to speak of his love. He felt that Yashvin, in spite of his apparent contempt for
every sort of feeling, was the only man who could, so he fancied, comprehend the intense
passion which now filled his whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Yashvin,
as it was, took no delight in gossip and scandal, and interpreted his feeling rightly,
that is to say, knew and believed that this passion was not a jest, not a pastime, but
something more serious and important.
Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he was aware that he knew
all about it, and that he put the right interpretation on it, and he was glad to see that
in his eyes.
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