Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed. Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.
“I bet a hundred on Stevens!” shouted one.
“Mind, no holding on!” cried another.
“I bet on Dólokhov!” cried a third. “Kurágin, you part our hands.”
“There, leave Bruin alone; here’s a bet on.”
“At one draught, or he loses!” shouted a fourth.
“Jacob, bring a bottle!” shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine linen shirt unfastened in front. “Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Pétya! Good man!” cried he, addressing Pierre.
Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes, particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring, cried from the window: “Come here; part the bets!” This was Dólokhov, an officer of the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him merrily.
“I don’t understand. What’s it all about?”
“Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here,” said Anatole, and taking a glass from the table he went up to Pierre.
“First of all you must drink!”
Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre’s glass while explaining that
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