Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/518

 very good fellow," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch. "I have just been with him,... a very good fellow; we lunched together, and I taught him how to make a drink, you know—wine and oranges. He liked it very much. No, he is a fine young man."

Stepan Arkadyevitch looked at his watch.

"Akh batiushki! it is after four o'clock! and I have still to see Dolgovushin. It is decided, then, that you will dine with us, is n't it? Both my wife and myself will feel really hurt if you refuse to come."

Alekseï Aleksandrovitch took leave of his brother-in-law very differently from the way in which he had greeted him.

"I have promised, and I will come," he replied in a melancholy tone.

"Believe me, I appreciate it; and I hope you will not regret it," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a smile.

And putting on his overcoat in the hall, he shook his fist at the servant's head, laughed, and went out.

"At five o'clock, remember, and in ordinary dress," he called back once more, returning to the door.

CHAPTER IX

was already six o'clock and several guests had come when the master of the house entered, meeting Sergyeï Ivanovitch Koznuishef and Pestsof at the door.

These were the two chief representatives of Moscow intellect, as Oblonsky had called them, and were men of distinction both by wit and character. They valued each other, but on almost every topic were absolutely and hopelessly at odds, not because they belonged to opposing parties but precisely because they were of the same camp,—their enemies confounded them in one,—but in this camp they each had their shades of opinion. Now there is nothing more conducive to disagreement than dissent in small particulars, and so they not only never agreed in their opinions, but never failed to laugh at each other good-naturedly for their incorrigible mistakes.