Page 1494 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Really?’ said Vronsky. ‘She will be very glad to see
you. I should be going home at once,’ he added, ‘but I’m
worried about Yashvin, and I want to stay on till he
finishes.’

‘Why, is he losing?’
‘He keeps losing, and I’m the only friend that can
restrain him.’
‘Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you
play? Capital!’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch. ‘Get the table
ready,’ he said to the marker.
‘It has been ready a long while,’ answered the marker,
who had already set the balls in a triangle, and was
knocking the red one about for his own diversion.
‘Well, let us begin.’
After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin’s
table, and at Stepan Arkadyevitch’s suggestion Levin took
a hand in the game.
Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends,
who were incessantly coming up to him. Every now and
then he went to the ‘infernal’ to keep an eye on Yashvin.
Levin was enjoying a delightful sense of repose after the
mental fatigue of the morning. He was glad that all
hostility was at an end with Vronsky, and the sense of
peace, decorum, and comfort never left him.

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