Page 389 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

comrades and superior officers, commanding both fear and
respect, and also at cards, when he would play for tens of
thousands and however much he might have drunk,
always with such skill and decision that he was reckoned

the best player in the English Club. Vronsky respected and
liked Yashvin particularly because he felt Yashvin liked
him, not for his name and his money, but for himself. And
of all men he was the only one with whom Vronsky
would have liked to speak of his love. He felt that
Yashvin, in spite of his apparent contempt for every sort of
feeling, was the only man who could, so he fancied,
comprehend the intense passion which now filled his
whole life. Moreover, he felt certain that Yashvin, as it
was, took no delight in gossip and scandal, and interpreted
his feeling rightly, that is to say, knew and believed that
this passion was not a jest, not a pastime, but something
more serious and important.
Vronsky had never spoken to him of his passion, but he
was aware that he knew all about it, and that he put the
right interpretation on it, and he was glad to see that in his
eyes.
‘Ah! yes,’ he said, to the announcement that Vronsky
had been at the Tverskoys’; and his black eyes shining, he

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