"Piotr Ilyitch Vinovsky sends these," interrupted a little old lackey, addressing Stepan Arkadyevitch, and bringing two diminutive glasses of bubbling champagne, and offering them to Oblonsky and Levin, Stepan Arkadyevitch took the glass, and, exchanging glances with a bald, ruddy, mustachioed man, at the other end of the table, nodded to him and smiled.
"Who is that?" asked Levin.
"You met him at my house once, don't you remember? He's a very good fellow."
Levin followed Oblonsky's example, and took his glass. Stepan Arkadyevitch's anecdote was also very diverting. Then Levin had his story to tell, and it likewise raised a laugh. Then the conversation turned on horses, and the races that had taken place that day, and they told how brilliantly Vronsky's trotter, Atlasnui, had won the first prize.
"Ah, here they are!" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, toward the end of the dinner, turning round in his chair to extend his hand to Vronsky, who was walking with a tall colonel of the Guards. Vronsky's face was also radiant with the good-natured gayety that reigned in the club. He leaned his elbow on Oblonsky's shoulder, and whispered some words in his ear with an air of good humor, and extended his hand with a friendly smile to Levin.
"I am very glad to meet you," said he. "I looked for you after the elections, but they told me you had gone."
"Yes! I went away the same day. .... We have just been speaking of your trotter. It was a very fast race."
"Yes, it was. Have n't you race-horses, too?"
"I? No. My father had horses, and I know about them."
"Where did you dine?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"At the second table, behind the columns."
"He has been loaded down with congratulations. It's very pretty .... a second imperial prize. I wish I could only have the same luck at play as he does with horses.
