But one day he turns up, and our porter...you know Vassily? Why, that fat one; he's famous for his _bon mots_.

And so Prince Tchetchensky asks him, 'Come, Vassily, who's here? Any _shlupiks_ here yet?' And he says, 'You're the third.

' Yes, my dear boy, that he did!" Talking and greeting the friends they met, Levin and the prince walked through all the rooms: the great room where tables had already been set, and the usual partners were playing for small stakes; the divan room, where they were playing chess, and Sergey Ivanovitch was sitting talking to somebody; the billiard room, where, about a sofa in a recess, there was a lively party drinking champagne--Gagin was one of them.

They peeped into the "infernal regions," where a good many men were crowding round one table, at which Yashvin was sitting.

Trying not to make a noise, they walked into the dark reading room, where under the shaded lamps there sat a young man with a wrathful countenance, turning over one journal after another, and a bald general buried in a book.