Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART EIGHT CHAPTER 2
Chapter 2
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.
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