He went to balls and into ladies' society with an affectation of doing so against his will.

The races, the English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house--that was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar! At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.

The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the Club's head cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for this dinner.

The count had been a member and on the committee of the Club from the day it was founded.

To him the Club entrusted the arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.