Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Eight/Chapter 3

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After Sergyeï Ivanovitch had taken leave of the princess, he and Katavasof, who had joined him, entered their carriage, which was packed, and the train started.

When the train rolled into the station at Tsaritsuino it was met by a chorus of young men singing the "Slav'sa." Again the volunteers put out their heads ​and bowed, but Sergyeï Ivanovitch paid no attention to them; he had had so much to do with volunteers that he already knew this general type, and it did not interest him. But Katavasof, who on account of his pedagogical occupations had not enjoyed any opportunity to observe the men who volunteered, was very much interested, and asked his friend about them.

Sergyeï Ivanovitch advised him to look into their carriage and talk with some of them.

At the next station, Katavasof followed this advice. As soon as the train stopped, he went into the second-class carriage, and made the acquaintance of the volunteers.

Some of them were seated in a corner of the carriage, talking noisily, aware that they were attracting the attention of the other passengers and of Katavasof, whom they saw come in. The tall, sunken-chested young man was talking louder than the others. He was evidently tipsy, and was telling the story of something which had happened in their establishment.

Opposite him sat an old officer in the Austrian military jacket of the Guard uniform. He was listening with a smile to the narrator, and occasionally prompting him. A third volunteer, in an artillery uniform, was sitting on a box near them. A fourth was asleep.

Katavasof entered into conversation with the youth, and learned that he had been a rich merchant in Moscow, who, before he was twenty-two years old, had succeeded in squandering a considerable fortune. Katavasof did not like him, because he was effeminate, conceited, and sickly. He evidently felt, especially now that he was drunk, that he was doing a heroic deed; and he boasted in the most disagreeable manner.

The second, a retired officer, also impressed Katavasof unpleasantly; he was a man who had apparently tried his hand at everything; he had worked on a railway, and had been director of an estate, and had established a factory; and he talked of everything without any necessity of doing so, and often used words which showed his ignorance.

​The third, the artilleryman, on the contrary, pleased Katavasof very much. He was a modest gentleman. He was evidently disgusted by the affected knowledge of the retired officer and the young merchant's boasted heroism, and he would say nothing about himself. When Katavasof asked him what induced him to go to Serbia, he answered modestly:—

"I am going because every one else is going. We must help the Serbians. It is too bad."

"They have very few of our artillerymen, I believe."

"My service in the artillery was very short. I may be assigned to the infantry or the cavalry."

"Why in the infantry, when they need artillerymen more than all?" asked Katavasof, gathering from the artillerist's age that he must have already reached a considerable rank.

"I did not serve very long in the artillery, but left the service when I was only a yunker."

And he began to explain why he had not passed his examination.

All this together produced on Katavasof a generally unpleasant impression, and when the volunteers rushed out into one of the stations to get something to drink, Katavasof felt the desire to talk with some one so as to confirm his unfavorable impression.

One of his fellow-travelers, a little old man in a military paletot, had been listening all the time to Katavasof's talk with the volunteers. As the two were left alone together in the carriage, Katavasof addressed him:—

"What a diversity in the condition of all these men that are going south," said Katavasof, vaguely, wishing to express his opinions and at the same time draw out the old man's views.

The old man was a soldier who had fought in two campaigns, and he knew what it meant to go to war; and in the actions and words of these gentlemen, the bravery with which they kept applying themselves to the flask, he read their inferiority as soldiers. Moreover, his residence was in a district city, and he wanted ​to relate how from that place a good-for-nothing fellow, a drunkard and thief whom no one would hire as a workman, had gone as a soldier. But, knowing by experience that in the present state of excitement under which society was laboring, it was dangerous to express himself frankly against the general sentiment, and especially to criticize the volunteers, he merely looked at Katavasof.

"Well, men are needed there," said he, smiling with his eyes.

And they began to talk over the latest war news, and each of them concealed from the other his doubt whether a battle was to be expected on the next day, since, according to the latest report, the Turks had been defeated at all points. And so they parted without either of them having expressed what he really thought.

When Katavasof returned to his own carriage, he told Sergyeï Ivanovitch, with some twinges of conscience, that he enjoyed talking with the volunteers, and he declared that they were excellent lads.

In the great station where they next stopped, the chorus, the cheers, the bouquets, and the beggars again appeared, and again the ladies with bouquets conducted the volunteers into the restaurant; but there was much less enthusiasm than there had been at Moscow.