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
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Anna Karenina
and louder; ‘to this great cause mother Moscow dedicates
you with her blessing. Jivio!’ he concluded, loudly and tearfully.
Everyone shouted Jivio! and a fresh crowd dashed into
the hall, almost carrying the princess off her legs.
‘Ah, princess! that was something like!’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, suddenly appearing in the middle of the
crowd and beaming upon them with a delighted smile.
‘Capitally, warmly said, wasn’t it? Bravo! And Sergey Ivanovitch! Why, you ought to have said something—just a few
words, you know, to encourage them; you do that so well,’
he added with a soft, respectful, and discreet smile, moving
Sergey Ivanovitch forward a little by the arm.
‘No, I’m just off.’
‘Where to?’
‘To the country, to my brother’s,’ answered Sergey Ivanovitch.
‘Then you’ll see my wife. I’ve written to her, but you’ll see
her first. Please tell her that they’ve seen me and that it’s ‘all
right,’ as the English say. She’ll understand. Oh, and be so
good as to tell her I’m appointed secretary of the committee…. But she’ll understand! You know, les petites miseres
de la vie humaine,’ he said, as it were apologizing to the
princess. ‘And Princess Myakaya—not Liza, but Bibish—is
sending a thousand guns and twelve nurses. Did I tell you?’
‘Yes, I heard so,’ answered Koznishev indifferently.
‘It’s a pity you’re going away,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
‘Tomorrow we’re giving a dinner to two who’re setting off—
Dimer-Bartnyansky from Petersburg and our Veslovsky,
1347
Grisha. They’re both going. Veslovsky’s only lately married.
There’s a fine fellow for you! Eh, princess?’ he turned to the
lady.
The princess looked at Koznishev without replying. But
the fact that Sergey Ivanovitch and the princess seemed
anxious to get rid of him did not in the least disconcert Stepan Arkadyevitch. Smiling, he stared at the feather in the
princess’s hat, and then about him as though he were going to pick something up. Seeing a lady approaching with a
collecting box, he beckoned her up and put in a five-rouble
note.
‘I can never see these collecting boxes unmoved while
I’ve money in my pocket,’ he said. ‘And how about today’s
telegram? Fine chaps those Montenegrins!’
‘You don’t say so!’ he cried, when the princess told him
that Vronsky was going by this train. For an instant Stepan
Arkadyevitch’s face looked sad, but a minute later, when,
stroking his mustaches and swinging as he walked, he went
into the hall where Vronsky was, he had completely forgotten his own despairing sobs over his sister’s corpse, and he
saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend.
‘With all his faults one can’t refuse to do him justice,’
said the princess to Sergey Ivanovitch as soon as Stepan
Arkadyevitch had left them. ‘What a typically Russian, Slav
nature! Only, I’m afraid it won’t be pleasant for Vronsky to
see him. Say what you will, I’m touched by that man’s fate.
Do talk to him a little on the way,’ said the princess.
‘Yes, perhaps, if it happens so.’
‘I never liked him. But this atones for a great deal. He’s
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Anna Karenina
not merely going himself, he’s taking a squadron at his own
expense.’
‘Yes, so I heard.’
A bell sounded. Everyone crowded to the doors. ‘Here
he is!’ said the princess, indicating Vronsky, who with his
mother on his arm walked by, wearing a long overcoat and
wide-brimmed black hat. Oblonsky was walking beside
him, talking eagerly of something.
Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him,
as though he did not hear what Stepan Arkadyevitch was
saying.
Probably on Oblonsky’s pointing them out, he looked
round in the direction where the princess and Sergey Ivanovitch were standing, and without speaking lifted his hat. His
face, aged and worn by suffering, looked stony.
Going onto the platform, Vronsky left his mother and
disappeared into a compartment.
On the platform there rang out ‘God save the Tsar,’ then
shouts of ‘hurrah!’ and ‘jivio!’ One of the volunteers, a tall,
very young man with a hollow chest, was particularly conspicuous, bowing and waving his felt hat and a nosegay over
his head. Then two officers emerged, bowing too, and a stout
man with a big beard, wearing a greasy forage cap.
1349
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 secondclass 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
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Anna Karenina
with a smile to the hollowchested 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 two-and-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
1351
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.
All of this together made a disagreeable impression on
Katavasov, and when the volunteers got out at a station for a
drink, Katavasov would have liked to compare his unfavorable impression in conversation with someone. There was
an old man in the carriage, wearing a military overcoat,
who had been listening all the while to Katavasov’s conversation with the volunteers. When they were left alone,
Katavasov addressed him.
‘What different positions they come from, all those fellows who are going off there,’ Katavasov said vaguely, not
wishing to express his own opinion, and at the same time
anxious to find out the old man’s views.
The old man was an officer who had served on two campaigns. He knew what makes a soldier, and judging by the
appearance and the talk of those persons, by the swagger
with which they had recourse to the bottle on the journey,
he considered them poor soldiers. Moreover, he lived in a
district town, and he was longing to tell how one soldier had
volunteered from his town, a drunkard and a thief whom
no one would employ as a laborer. But knowing by experience that in the present condition of the public temper it
was dangerous to express an opinion opposed to the general
one, and especially to criticize the volunteers unfavorably,
he too watched Katavasov without committing himself.
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Anna Karenina
‘Well, men are wanted there,’ he said, laughing with his
eyes. And they fell to talking of the last war news, and each
concealed from the other his perplexity as to the engagement expected next day, since the Turks had been beaten,
according to the latest news, at all points. And so they parted, neither giving expression to his opinion.
Katavasov went back to his own carriage, and with
reluctant hypocrisy reported to Sergey Ivanovitch his observations of the volunteers, from which it would appear
that they were capital fellows.
At a big station at a town the volunteers were again greeted with shouts and singing, again men and women with
collecting boxes appeared, and provincial ladies brought
bouquets to the volunteers and followed them into the refreshment room; but all this was on a much smaller and
feebler scale than in Moscow.
1353
Chapter 4
While the train was stopping at the provincial town,
Sergey Ivanovitch did not go to the refreshment room, but
walked up and down the platform.
The first time he passed Vronsky’s compartment he noticed that the curtain was drawn over the window; but as
he passed it the second time he saw the old countess at the
window. She beckoned to Koznishev.
‘I’m going, you see, taking him as far as Kursk,’ she said.
‘Yes, so I
