Page 1483 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Chapter 7

Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members
and visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not
been at the club for a very long while—not since he lived
in Moscow, when he was leaving the university and going
into society. He remembered the club, the external details
of its arrangement, but he had completely forgotten the
impression it had made on him in old days. But as soon as,
driving into the wide semicircular court and getting out of
the sledge, he mounted the steps, and the hall porter,
adorned with a crossway scarf, noiselessly opened the door
to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the porter’s room
the cloaks and galoshes of members who thought it less
trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard
the mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he
ascended the easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the statue on
the landing, and the third porter at the top doors, a
familiar figure grown older, in the club livery, opening the
door without haste or delay, and scanning the visitors as
they passed in—Levin felt the old impression of the club
come back in a rush, an impression of repose, comfort,
and propriety.

1482 of 1759