"Come now, tell us, Veslovsky, how are the stones held together?"

"By cement, of course."

"Bravo! And what is cement?"

"Oh, some sort of paste...no, putty," said Veslovsky, raising

a general laugh.

The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the

architect, and the steward, who remained plunged in gloomy

silence, kept up a conversation that never paused, glancing off

one subject, fastening on another, and at times stinging one or

the other to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to

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the quick, and got so hot that she positively flushed and

wondered afterwards whether she had said anything extreme or

unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin, describing his

strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its effects

on Russian agriculture.

"I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin," Vronsky said,

smiling, "but most likely he has never seen the machines he

condemns; or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been

after a queer fashion, some Russian imitation, not a machine from

abroad. What sort of views can anyone have on such a subject?"

"Turkish views, in general," Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with

a smile.

"I can't defend his opinions," Darya Alexandrovna said, firing

up; "but I can say that he's a highly cultivated man, and if he

were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am

not capable of doing so."

"I like him extremely, and we are great friends," Sviazhsky said,

smiling good-naturedly. "_Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toqué;_

he maintains, for instance, that district councils and

arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take

part in anything."

"It's our Russian apathy," said Vronsky, pouring water from an

iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; "we've no

sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we

refuse to recognize these duties."

"I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties,"

said Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by Vronsky's tone of

superiority.

"For my part," pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason

or other keenly affected by this conversation, "such as I am, I

am, on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have

done me, thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch" (he indicated Sviazhsky),

"in electing me a justice of the peace. I consider that for me

the duty of being present at the session, of judging some

peasants' quarrel about a horse, is as important as anything I

can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me for

the district council. It's only in that way I can pay for the

advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don't

understand the weight that the big landowners ought to have in

the state."




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