Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/250

 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, pull-