Anna Karenina - Part 1 - Page 116/119

When Vronsky went to Moscow from Petersburg, he had left his

large set of rooms in Morskaia to his friend and favorite comrade

Petritsky.

Petritsky was a young lieutenant, not particularly

well-connected, and not merely not wealthy, but always hopelessly

in debt. Towards evening he was always drunk, and he had often

been locked up after all sorts of ludicrous and disgraceful

scandals, but he was a favorite both of his comrades and his

superior officers. On arriving at twelve o'clock from the

station at his flat, Vronsky saw, at the outer door, a hired

carriage familiar to him. While still outside his own door, as

he rang, he heard masculine laughter, the lisp of a feminine

voice, and Petritsky's voice. "If that's one of the villains,

don't let him in!" Vronsky told the servant not to announce him,

and slipped quietly into the first room. Baroness Shilton, a

friend of Petritsky's, with a rosy little face and flaxen hair,

resplendent in a lilac satin gown, and filling the whole room,

like a canary, with her Parisian chatter, sat at the round table

making coffee. Petritsky, in his overcoat, and the cavalry

captain Kamerovsky, in full uniform, probably just come from

duty, were sitting each side of her.

"Bravo! Vronsky!" shouted Petritsky, jumping up, scraping his

chair. "Our host himself! Baroness, some coffee for him out of

the new coffee pot. Why, we didn't expect you! Hope you're

satisfied with the ornament of your study," he said, indicating

the baroness. "You know each other, of course?"

"I should think so," said Vronsky, with a bright smile, pressing

the baroness's little hand. "What next! I'm an old friend."

"You're home after a journey," said the baroness, "so I'm flying.

Oh, I'll be off this minute, if I'm in the way."

"You're home, wherever you are, baroness," said Vronsky. "How do

you do, Kamerovsky?" he added, coldly shaking hands with

Kamerovsky.

"There, you never know how to say such pretty things," said the

baroness, turning to Petritsky.

"No; what's that for? After dinner I say things quite as good."

"After dinner there's no credit in them? Well, then, I'll make

you some coffee, so go and wash and get ready," said the

baroness, sitting down again, and anxiously turning the screw in

the new coffee pot. "Pierre, give me the coffee," she said,

addressing Petritsky, whom she called Pierre as a contraction of

his surname, making no secret of her relations with him. "I'll

put it in."