Sergey Ivanovitch and Katavasov had only just reached the station
of the Kursk line, which was particularly busy and full of
people that day, when, looking round for the groom who was
following with their things, they saw a party of volunteers
driving up in four cabs. Ladies met them with bouquets of
flowers, and followed by the rushing crowd they went into the
station.
One of the ladies, who had met the volunteers, came out of the
hall and addressed Sergey Ivanovitch.
"You too come to see them off?" she asked in French.
"No, I'm going away myself, princess. To my brother's for a
holiday. Do you always see them off?" said Sergey Ivanovitch with
a hardly perceptible smile.
"Oh, that would be impossible!" answered the princess. "Is it
true that eight hundred have been sent from us already?
Malvinsky wouldn't believe me."
"More than eight hundred. If you reckon those who have been sent
not directly from Moscow, over a thousand," answered Sergey
Ivanovitch.
"There! That's just what I said!" exclaimed the lady. "And it's
true too, I suppose, that more than a million has been
subscribed?"
"Yes, princess."
"What do you say to today's telegram? Beaten the Turks again."
"Yes, so I saw," answered Sergey Ivanovitch. They were speaking
of the last telegram stating that the Turks had been for three
days in succession beaten at all points and put to flight, and
that tomorrow a decisive engagement was expected.
"Ah, by the way, a splendid young fellow has asked leave to go,
and they've made some difficulty, I don't know why. I meant to
ask you; I know him; please write a note about his case. He's
being sent by Countess Lidia Ivanovna."
Sergey Ivanovitch asked for all the details the princess knew
about the young man, and going into the first-class waiting-room,
wrote a note to the person on whom the granting of leave of
absence depended, and handed it to the princess.
"You know Count Vronsky, the notorious one...is going by this
train?" said the princess with a smile full of triumph and
meaning, when he found her again and gave her the letter.
"I had heard he was going, but I did not know when. By this
train?"
"I've seen him. He's here: there's only his mother seeing him
off. It's the best thing, anyway, that he could do."
"Oh, yes, of course."
While they were talking the crowd streamed by them into the
dining room. They went forward too, and heard a gentleman with a
glass in his hand delivering a loud discourse to the volunteers.
"In the service of religion, humanity, and our brothers," the
gentleman said, his voice growing louder and louder; "to this
great cause mother Moscow dedicates you with her blessing.
_Jivio!_" he concluded, loudly and tearfully.