Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Two/Chapter 20
CHAPTER XX
Vronsky was lodging in a neat and spacious Finnish izba, divided in two by a partition. Petritsky was his chum, not only in Petersburg, but here also in camp. He was asleep when Vronsky and Yashvin entered.
"Get up! you've slept long enough," said Yashvin, going behind the partition, and shaking the sleeper's shoulder, as he lay with his nose buried in the pillow.
Petritsky suddenly got up on his knees, and looked all about him.
"Your brother has been here," said he to Vronsky. "He woke me up, the devil take him! and he said that he would come again."
Then he threw himself back on the pillow again, and pulled up the bedclothes.
"Stop! Yashvin," he cried angrily, as his comrade twitched off his quilt. Then he turned over, opened his eyes, and said, "You would do much better to tell me what I ought to drink to take this bad taste out of my mouth."
"Vodka is better than anything," said Yashvin. "Tereshchenko! Bring the barin some vodka and cucumbers," he cried, delighting in the thunder of his voice.
"You advise vodka? ha!" exclaimed Petritsky, scowling, and rubbing his eyes. "Will you take some, too? If you'll join, all right! Vronsky, will you have a drink?" said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping a striped quilt around him under his arms. He came to the door of the partition, raised his arms in the air, and began to sing in French, "'There was a king in Thu-u-le.'—Vronsky, will you have a drink?"
"Go away," replied the latter, who was putting on an overcoat brought him by his valet.
"Where are you going?" asked Yashvin, seeing a carriage drawn by three horses. "Here's the troïka."
"To the stables, then to Briansky's to see about some horses," replied Vronsky.
Vronsky had, indeed, promised to bring some money to Briansky, who lived about ten versts from Peterhof; and he was in a hurry to get there as soon as possible so as to pay for the horses, but his friends immediately understood that he was also going somewhere else.
Petritsky, who kept on singing, winked, and pursed his lips as if he would say, "We know who this Briansky means."
"See here, don't be late," said Yashvin; and, changing the subject, "And my roan, does she suit you?" he asked, looking out of the window, and referring to the middle horse of the team which he had sold.
Just as Vronsky left the room, Petritsky called out to him, "Hold on! your brother left a note and a letter. Hold on! where did I put them?"
Vronsky waited impatiently.
"Well, where are they?"
"Where are they indeed? That's the question," declaimed Petritsky, solemnly, putting his forefinger above his nose.
"Speak quick! no nonsense!" said Vronsky, smiling.
"I have not had any fire in the fireplace; where can I have put them?"
"Come now, that's enough talk! where 's the letter?"
"I swear I have forgotten; or did I dream about it? Wait, wait! don't get angry. If you had drunk four bottles, as I did yesterday, you would n't even know where you went to bed. Hold on, I'll think in a minute."
Petritsky went behind his screen again, and got into bed.
"Hold on! I was lying here. He stood there. Da-da-da-da!.... Here it is!"
And he pulled the letter out from under the mattress, where he had put it.
Vronsky took the letter and his brother's note. It was exactly as he expected. His mother reproached him because he had not been to see her, and his brother said he had something to speak to him about. "What concern is it of theirs?" he muttered; and, crumpling up the notes, he thrust them between his coat-buttons, intending to read them more carefully on the way.
Just as he left the izba, he met two officers, one of whom belonged to a different regiment. Vronsky's quarters were always the headquarters of all the officers.
"Whither away?"
"Must—to Peterhof."
"Has your horse come from Tsarskoye?"
"Yes, but I have not seen her yet."
"They say Makhotin's 'Gladiator' is lame."
"Rubbish! But how can you trot in such mud?" said the other.
"Here are my saviors," cried Petritsky, as he saw the newcomers. The denshchik was standing before him with vodka and salted cucumbers on a platter. "Yashvin, here, ordered me to drink, so as to clear my head."
"Well, you were too much for us last night," said one of the officers. "You did not let us sleep all night."
"I must tell you how we ended it," began Petritsky. "Volkof climbed up on the roof, and told us that he was blue. I sung out, 'Give us some music,—a funeral march.' And he went to sleep on the roof to the music of the funeral march."
"Drink, drink your vodka by all means, and then take seltzer and a lot of lemon," said Yashvin, encouraging Petritsky as a mother encourages her child to swallow some medicine. "It is only a little bottle."
"Now, this is sense. Hold on, Vronsky, and have a drink with us!"
"No. Good-by, gentlemen. I am not drinking to-day."
"Vronsky," cried some one, after he had gone into the vestibule.
"What?"
"You'd better cut off your hair; it's getting very long, especially on the bald spot."
Vronsky, in fact, was beginning to get a little bald. He laughed gayly, showing his splendid teeth, and, pulling his cap over the bald spot, he went out and got into his carriage.
"To the stables," he said.
He started to take his letters for a second reading, but on second thought deferred them so that he might think of nothing else but his horse.
"I'll wait."