very glad," said Levin.

"Waiter, a bottle of champagne," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.

"And I'm very glad," said Vronsky.

But in spite of Stepan Arkadyevitch's desire, and their own
desire, they had nothing to talk about, and both felt it.

"Do you know, he has never met Anna?" Stepan Arkadyevitch said to
Vronsky. "And I want above everything to take him to see her.
Let us go, Levin!"

"Really?" said Vronsky. "She will be very glad to see you. I
should be going home at once," he added, "but I'm worried about
Yashvin, and I want to stay on till he finishes."

"Why, is he losing?"

"He keeps losing, and I'm the only friend that can restrain him."

"Well, what do you say to pyramids? Levin, will you play?
Capital!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Get the table ready," he
said to the marker.

"It has been ready a long while," answered the marker, who had
already set the balls in a triangle, and was knocking the red one
about for his own diversion.

"Well, let us begin."

After the game Vronsky and Levin sat down at Gagin's table, and
at Stepan Arkadyevitch's suggestion Levin took a hand in the
game.

Vronsky sat down at the table, surrounded by friends, who were
incessantly coming up to him. Every now and then he went to the
"infernal" to keep an eye on Yashvin. Levin was enjoying a
delightful sense of repose after the mental fatigue of the
morning. He was glad that all hostility was at an end with
Vronsky, and the sense of peace, decorum, and comfort never left
him.

When the game was over, Stepan Arkadyevitch took Levin's arm.

"Well, let us go to Anna's, then. At once? Eh? She is at home.
I promised her long ago to bring you. Where were you meaning to
spend the evening?"

"Oh, nowhere specially. I promised Sviazhsky to go to the
Society of Agriculture. By all means, let us go," said Levin.

"Very good; come along. Find out if my carriage is here," Stepan
Arkadyevitch said to the waiter.

Levin went up to the table, paid the forty roubles he had lost;
paid his bill, the amount of which was in some mysterious way
ascertained by the little old waiter who stood at the counter,
and swinging his arms he walked through all the rooms to the way
out.

Chapter 9

"Oblonsky's carriage!" the porter shouted in an angry bass. The
carriage drove up and both got in. It was only for the first few
moments, while the carriage was driving out of the clubhouse
gates, that Levin was still under t