Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART EIGHT CHAPTER 3
Chapter 3
SAYING good-bye to the princess, Sergey Ivanovitch was joined by Katavasov; together
they got into a carriage full to overflowing, and the train started.
At Tsaritsino station the train was met by a chorus of young men singing “Hail
to Thee!” Again the volunteers bowed and poked their heads out, but Sergey
Ivanovitch paid no attention to them. He had had so much to do with the volunteers
that the type was familiar to him and did not interest him. Katavasov, whose
scientific work had prevented his having a chance of observing them hitherto, was
very much interested in them and questioned Sergey Ivanovitch.
Sergey Ivanovitch advised him to go into the second-class and talk to them himself.
At the next station Katavasov acted on this suggestion.
At the first stop he moved into the second-class and made the acquaintance of
the volunteers. They were sitting in a corner of the carriage, talking loudly and
obviously aware that the attention of the passengers and Katavasov as he got in was
concentrated upon them. More loudly than all talked the tall, hollow-chested young
man. He was unmistakably tipsy, and was relating some story that had occurred at
his school. Facing him sat a middle-aged officer in the Austrian military jacket of the
Guards uniform. He was listening with a smile to the hollow- chested youth, and
occasionally pulling him up. The third, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a box
beside them. A fourth was asleep.
Entering into conversation with the youth, Katavasov learned that he was a
wealthy Moscow merchant who had run through a large fortune before he was twoand-twenty.
Katavasov did not like him, because he was unmanly and effeminate
and sickly. He was obviously convinced, especially now after drinking, that he was
performing a heroic action, and he bragged of it in the most unpleasant way.
The second, the retired officer, made an unpleasant impression too upon
Katavasov. He was, it seemed, a man who had tried everything. He had been on
a railway, had been a land-steward, and had started factories, and he talked, quite
without necessity, of all he had done, and used learned expressions quite inappropriately.
The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, struck Katavasov very favorably. He
was a quiet, modest fellow, unmistakably impressed by the knowledge of the officer
and the heroic self-sacrifice of the merchant and saying nothing about himself. When
Katavasov asked him what had impelled him to go to Servia, he answered modestly:
“Oh, well, everyone’s going. The Servians want help, too. I’m sorry for them.”
“Yes, you artillerymen especially are scarce there,” said Katavasov.
“Oh, I wasn’t long in the artillery, maybe they’ll put me into the infantry or the
cavalry.”
“Into the infantry when they need artillery more than anything?” said Katavasov,
fancying from the artilleryman’s apparent age that he must have reached a fairly
high grade.
“I wasn’t long in the artillery; I’m a cadet retired,” he said, and he began to explain
how he had failed in his examination.
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