LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 20

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      VRONSKY had his quarters in a roomy, clean, Finnish peasant cottage, divided in two by a partition. Here in camp also, Petritsky was asleep when Vronsky and Yashvin entered.

      ‘Get up, you’ve slept enough!’ said Yashvin, stepping behind the partition and shaking by the shoulder the dishevelled Petritsky, who lay with his nose buried in the pillow. Petritsky suddenly sprang to his knees and looked round.

      ‘Your brother has been here,’ he said to Vronsky. ‘He woke me up, devil take him! … He said he would come back.’ And drawing up his blanket he threw himself back on his pillow. ‘Leave me alone, Yashvin!’ he said angrily to Yashvin, who was pulling the blanket off him. ‘Leave off!’ He turned and opened his eyes. ‘You had better tell me what to drink! I’ve such a horrid taste in my mouth that …’

      ‘Vodka is better than anything,’ said Yashvin in his base voice. ‘Tereshchenko! Vodka and pickled cucumbers for your master!’ he shouted, evidently enjoying the sound of his own voice.

      ‘Vodka, you think, eh?’ asked Petritsky, making a face and rubbing his eyes. ‘And will you have a drink? Let us have a drink together! Vronsky, will you have a drink?’ said Petritsky, getting up and wrapping himself to the arms in a rug of tiger-skin pattern.

      He went to the partition door, held up his hands, and began singing in French, ‘ “There was a king in Thule!” Vronsky, will you have a drink?’

      ‘Get away!’ said Vronsky, as he put on the overcoat his servant had handed him.

      ‘Where to now?’ asked Yashvin. ‘Here are the horses,’ he added as he saw the calèche drive up to the door.

      ‘To the stables, and then I have to go to Bryansky about the horses,’ said Vronsky.

      He had really promised to go to Bryansky’s, who lived seven miles from Peterhof, and pay him for the horses, and he hoped to make time to call there too. But his friends understood at once that it was not only there that he was going.

      Petritsky, still singing, winked his eyes and pouted as if to say, ‘We know what sort of Bryansky it is.’

      ‘Mind and don’t be late!’ was all Yashvin said, and to change the subject he asked, ‘Is my roan doing well?’ looking out of the window at the middle horse, which he had sold to Vronsky.

      ‘Wait!’ shouted Petritsky to Vronsky, who was already going out. ‘Your brother left a letter for you and a note. Wait! Where are they?’

      Vronsky stopped. ‘Well, where are they?’

      ‘Where are they? That is the question!’ declaimed Petritsky with solemnity, moving his finger upwards from his nose.

      ‘Come, tell me. This is stupid!’ said Vronsky, smiling.

      ‘I have not lighted the fire. They must be somewhere here.’

      ‘Enough of this! Where is the letter?’

      ‘No, really I have forgotten. Or was it a dream? Wait, wait. Why get angry? If you had emptied four bottles a head as we did last night, you would not know where you were lying. Wait a bit, I’ll remember it directly.’

      Petritsky went behind the partition and lay down on his bed.

      ‘Wait! So I lay, and so he stood. Yes, yes, yes… . Here it is!’ and Petritsky drew the letter from under the mattress where he had put it.

      Vronsky took the letter and his brother’s note. It was just what he had expected: a letter from his mother reproaching him for not having come to see her, and a note from his brother saying that they must talk things over. Vronsky knew that it all referred to the same subject. ‘What business is it of theirs?’ thought he, and crumpling up the letters he pushed them in between the buttons of his coat, to be read more attentively on the way. In the passage he met two officers, one of his own and one of another regiment.

      Vronsky’s quarters were always the haunt of all the officers.

      ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘I have to go to Peterhof.’

      ‘Has the mare come from Tsarskoe?’

      ‘Yes, but I have not seen her since she came.’

      ‘They say Makhotin’s Gladiator has gone lame.’

      ‘Nonsense! But how will you manage to ride through such mud?’ said the other officer.

      ‘These are the things to restore me!’ shouted Petritsky on seeing the newcomers. The orderly stood before him with vodka and pickled cucumbers on a tray. ‘Yashvin here has ordered vodka to freshen me up.’

      ‘Well, you did give it us last night,’ said one of the newcomers. ‘You did not let us sleep all night.’

      ‘Oh, but how we finished up!’ said Petritsky. ‘Volkov climbed out on to the roof and said he felt melancholy. I said, “Let us have music: a Funeral March!” And he fell asleep up there on the roof to the sound of the Funeral March.’

      ‘Drink, you must drink some vodka and then some seltzer water with plenty of lemon,’ said Yashvin, standing over Petritsky, like a mother urging her child to take its medicine.’ And after that a little champagne, about … a small bottle.’

      ‘Now that is reasonable! Wait, Vronsky, let us have a drink.’

      ‘No, goodbye, gentlemen. I am not drinking to-day.’

      ‘Why, because of the weight? Well then, we will drink by ourselves. Let’s have seltzers and lemons.’

      ‘Vronsky!’ shouted some one as Vronsky was already leaving.

      ‘What?’

      ‘You should have your hair cut; it will be too heavy, especially on the top.’

      Vronsky was really beginning prematurely to get a little bald. He laughed merrily, showing his compact row of teeth, and drawing his cap over

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