LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 10

      WHEN they entered the restaurant Levin could not help noticing something peculiar in his friend’s expression, a kind of suppressed radiance in his face and whole figure. Oblonsky took off his overcoat, and with his hat on one side walked into the dining-room, giving his orders to the Tartar waiters, in their swallowtail coats, with napkins under their arms, who attached themselves to him. Bowing right and left to his acquaintances who, here as elsewhere, greeted him joyfully, he passed on to the buffet, drank a glass of vodka and ate a bit of fish as hors d’œuvre, and said something to the painted Frenchwoman, bedecked with ribbons and lace, who sat at a little counter — something that made even this Frenchwoman burst into frank laughter.

      Levin did not take any vodka, simply because that Frenchwoman — made up, as it seemed to him, of false hair, powder, and toilet vinegar — was offensive to him. He moved away from her as from some dirty place. His whole soul was filled with Kitty’s image, and his eyes shone with a smile of triumph and happiness.

      ‘This way, please your Excellency! This way — no one will disturb your Excellency here,’ said a specially officious waiter, an old white-headed Tartar, so wide in the hips that the tails of his coat separated behind.

      ‘If you please, your Excellency,’ he said, turning to Levin and as a mark of respect to Oblonsky paying attention to his guest. In a moment he had spread a fresh cloth on a round table already covered with a cloth beneath a bronze chandelier, moved two velvet chairs to the table, and stood with a napkin and menu awaiting the order.

      ‘If your Excellency would like a private room, one will be vacant in a few moments. Prince Golitzin is there with a lady. We’ve some fresh oysters in, sir.’

      ‘Ah — oysters!’ Oblonsky paused and considered.

      ‘Shall we change our plan, Levin?’ he said, with his finger on the bill of fare and his face expressing serious perplexity. ‘But are the oysters really good? Now be careful …’

      ‘Real Flensburg, your Excellency! We’ve no Ostend ones.’

      ‘They may be Flensburg, but are they fresh?’

      ‘They only arrived yesterday.’

      ‘Well then, shall we begin with oysters and change the plan of our dinner, eh?’

      ‘I don’t mind. I like buckwheat porridge and cabbage-soup best, but they don’t have those things here.’

      ‘Would you like Buckwheat à la Russe?’ said the Tartar, stooping over Levin like a nurse over a child.

      ‘No — joking apart, whatever you choose will suit me, I’ve been skating and I’m hungry! Don’t think that I do not appreciate your choice,’ he added, noticing a dissatisfied look on Oblonsky’s face. ‘I shall be glad of a good dinner.’

      ‘I should think so! Say what you like, it is one of the pleasures of life!’ said Oblonsky. ‘Well then, my good fellow, bring us two — or that will be too little, … three dozen oysters, and vegetable soup …’

      ‘Printanier,’ chimed in the waiter.

      But Oblonsky evidently did not wish to give him the pleasure of calling the dishes by their French names.

      ‘… vegetable, you know. Then turbot with thick sauce; then … roast beef (and mind it’s good!); and then capon, shall we say? Yes. And stewed fruit.’

      The waiter, remembering Oblonsky’s way of calling the items on the French menu by their Russian names, did not repeat the words after him, but afterwards allowed himself the pleasure of repeating the whole of the order according to the menu: ‘Potage printanier, turbot, sauce Beaumarchais, poularde à l’estragon, macédoine de fruits …’ and immediately, as if moved by springs, he put down the bill of fare in one cardboard cover, and seizing another containing the wine-list held it out to Oblonsky.

      ‘What shall we have to drink?’

      ‘Whatever you like, only not too much … Champagne!’ said Levin.

      ‘What, to begin with? However, why not? You like the white seal?’

      ‘Cachet blanc,’ chimed in the waiter.

      ‘Yes, bring us that with the oysters, and then we’ll see.’

      ‘Yes, sir, and what sort of table wine?’

      ‘Nuit … no, let’s have the classic Chablis.’

      ‘Yes sir. And your special cheese?’

      ‘Well, yes — parmesan. Or do you prefer some other kind?’

      ‘No, I really don’t care,’ said Levin, unable to restrain a smile.

      The Tartar darted off, his coat-tails flying; and five minutes later rushed in again, with a dish of opened oysters in pearly shells and a bottle between his fingers.

      Oblonsky crumpled his starched napkin and pushed a corner of it inside his waistcoat, then, with his arms comfortably on the table, attacked the oysters.

      ‘Not bad,’ he said, pulling the quivering oysters out of their pearly shells with a silver fork, and swallowing one after another. ‘Not bad,’ he repeated, lifting his moist and glittering eyes now to Levin, now to the Tartar.

      Levin could eat oysters, though he preferred bread and cheese. But it gave him more pleasure to watch Oblonsky. Even the Tartar, who having drawn the cork and poured the sparkling wine into the thin wide glasses was straightening his white tie, glanced with a smile of evident pleasure at Oblonsky.

      ‘You don’t care much for oysters?’ said Oblonsky, emptying his champagne glass — ‘or perhaps you’re thinking of something else. Eh?’

      He wanted Levin to be in good spirits. But Levin, if not exactly in bad spirits, felt constrained. The feelings that filled his heart made him ill at ease and uncomfortable in this restaurant with its private rooms where men took women to dine. Everything seemed offensive: these bronzes, mirrors, gaslights and Tartar waiters. He was afraid of soiling that which filled his soul.

      ‘I? Yes, I am preoccupied — and besides, all this makes me feel constrained,’ he said. ‘You can’t imagine how strange it all seems to me who live in the country, — like the nails of that gentleman I saw at your place.’

      ‘Yes, I noticed that poor Grinevich’s nails interested you greatly,’ said Oblonsky.

      ‘I can’t help it,’ replied Levin. ‘Put yourself in my place — look at it from a country fellow’s point of view! We try to get our hands into a state convenient to work with, and for

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