let anything pass concerning which he might be asked on his return, "Did you see that in Russia?" And moreover he wanted to enjoy as far as possible all the pleasures peculiar to the country. Vronsky was obliged to be his guide in the one and in the other. In the morning they went out to see the sights; in the evening they took part in the national amusements.
This prince enjoyed exceptionally good health, even for a prince; and, owing to his gymnastic exercises and the scrupulous care he took of himself, notwithstanding the excesses to which he let his love for pleasure carry him, he remained as fresh as a great, green, shiny Dutch cucumber.
He had been a great traveler, and had found that one of the great advantages of easy modern communication consisted in the fact that it brought national amusements into easy reach. In Spain he had given serenades, and fallen in love with a Spanish girl who played the mandolin; in Switzerland he had killed a chamois; in England leaped ditches in a red shooting jacket, and shot two hundred pheasants on a wager; in Turkey he had penetrated a harem; in India he had ridden the elephant; and now he wanted to taste the special pleasures that Russia afforded.
Vronsky, as master of ceremonies, arranged, with no little difficulty, a program of amusements truly Russian in character. There were races and blinui, or carnival cakes, and bear-hunts and troïka parties and gipsies, and feasts set forth with Russian dishes, and the prince with extraordinary aptitude entered into the spirit of these Russian sports, broke his waiter of glasses with the rest, took a gipsy girl on his knee, and apparently asked himself if the whole Russian spirit consisted only in this, without going further.
In reality, the prince took more delight in French actresses, ballet-dancers, and white-seal champagne, than in all the other pleasures which the Russians could offer him.
Vronsky was accustomed to princes, but either because he had changed of late, or else because he had
