The Temple of Idleness

Walking his son-in-law through the Temple of Idleness, the old Prince explains shlyupiks — eggs cracked soft by too much rolling — and tells how the hall-porter Vasily informed Prince Chechensky that he was the third one. They pass the card-room, the sofa-room, the billiard-room, the 'infernal regions' where Yashvin is at play, the dim reading-room and the wise room, where three gentlemen argue the political news; Levin listens a moment, remembers everything else he has heard that day, and is suddenly bored to death. He finds Oblonsky talking to Vronsky about an indefinite, unsettled position, and is seized by the elbow: this is my true, almost my best friend, and you are dearer still, and I want you to be friends. They shake hands, say they are glad, and find they have nothing to say. Vronsky stays to keep Yashvin from losing more. They play pyramids, Levin loses forty roubles betting on aces, and goes off with Oblonsky to call on Anna.

Tolstoy grants the reconciliation and immediately prices it: they have nothing to say to one another and both know it. The shlyupik is the club's own word for what it makes of men, supplied by a member who knows he is becoming one. The decision to call on Anna is taken by a man who has drunk two bottles and lost forty roubles.