Levin reached the club just at the right time. Members and
visitors were driving up as he arrived. Levin had not been at
the club for a very long while--not since he lived in Moscow,
when he was leaving the university and going into society. He
remembered the club, the external details of its arrangement, but
he had completely forgotten the impression it had made on him in
old days. But as soon as, driving into the wide semicircular
court and getting out of the sledge, he mounted the steps, and
the hall porter, adorned with a crossway scarf, noiselessly
opened the door to him with a bow; as soon as he saw in the
porter's room the cloaks and galoshes of members who thought it
less trouble to take them off downstairs; as soon as he heard the
mysterious ringing bell that preceded him as he ascended the
easy, carpeted staircase, and saw the statue on the landing, and
the third porter at the top doors, a familiar figure grown older,
in the club livery, opening the door without haste or delay, and
scanning the visitors as they passed in--Levin felt the old
impression of the club come back in a rush, an impression of
repose, comfort, and propriety.
"Your hat, please," the porter said to Levin, who forgot the club
rule to leave his hat in the porter's room. "Long time since
you've been. The prince put your name down yesterday. Prince
Stepan Arkadyevitch is not here yet."
The porter did not only know Levin, but also all his ties and
relationships, and so immediately mentioned his intimate friends.
Passing through the outer hall, divided up by screens, and the
room partitioned on the right, where a man sits at the fruit
buffet, Levin overtook an old man walking slowly in, and entered
the dining room full of noise and people.
He walked along the tables, almost all full, and looked at the
visitors. He saw people of all sorts, old and young; some he
knew a little, some intimate friends. There was not a single
cross or worried-looking face. All seemed to have left their
cares and anxieties in the porter's room with their hats, and
were all deliberately getting ready to enjoy the material
blessings of life. Sviazhsky was here and Shtcherbatsky,
Nevyedovsky and the old prince, and Vronsky and Sergey
Ivanovitch.
"Ah! why are you late?" the prince said smiling, and giving him
his hand over his own shoulder. "How's Kitty?" he added,
smoothing out the napkin he had tucked in at his waistcoat
buttons.
"All right; they are dining at home, all the three of them."