Levin at the club

At the club the old atmosphere of repose, ease and propriety closes round Levin from the first bow of the porter, who knows his relatives and has to remind him that hats are left at the entrance. In the dining-room there is not one angry or anxious face; everyone has left his cares in the hall with his hat. The old Prince has no room at his table, so Levin joins Turovtsin, whose good-natured face is particularly welcome after a day of strained intellectual talk, and Gagin from Petersburg, who orders champagne and tells an indecent, stupid and very funny Petersburg anecdote. Levin orders another bottle, laughs loudly enough to make people turn, and tells a story of his own. A stranger sends over two glasses of champagne with his compliments. Then Vronsky comes up with Yashvin, lit by the same good humour; they talk of his winning Atlasny, of cattle breeds, of Kitty's meeting him at the Princess Mary Borisovna's, and Levin finds he has not the least animosity left.

The club does in an hour what a day of concerts and committees could not: Levin is at ease, well fed, laughing at a stupid story. Tolstoy states the mechanism exactly — cares left in the hall with the hats — and lets it work on the reader too. The reconciliation with Vronsky arrives through champagne and cattle breeds, and is none the less real for that.