hear and take part in those rural conversations concerning crops, laborers’ wages, and so on, which, he was aware, are conventionally regarded as something very low, but which seemed to him just now to constitute the one subject of importance.  “It was not, perhaps, of importance in the days of serfdom, and it may not be of importance in England.  In both cases the conditions of agriculture are firmly established; but among us now, when everything has been turned upside down and is only just taking shape, the question what form these conditions will take is the one question of importance in Russia,” thought Levin.

The shooting turned out to be worse than Levin had expected.  The marsh was dry and there were no grouse at all.  He walked about the whole day and only brought back three birds, but to make up for that—­he brought back, as he always did from shooting, an excellent appetite, excellent spirits, and that keen, intellectual mood which with him always accompanied violent physical exertion.  And while out shooting, when he seemed to be thinking of nothing at all, suddenly the old man and his family kept coming back to his mind, and the impression of them seemed to claim not merely his attention, but the solution of some question connected with them.

In the evening at tea, two landowners who had come about some business connected with a wardship were of the party, and the interesting conversation Levin had been looking forward to sprang up.

Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was obliged to keep up a conversation with her and her sister, who was sitting opposite him.  Madame Sviazhskaya was a round-faced, fair-haired, rather short woman, all smiles and dimples.  Levin tried through her to get a solution of the weighty enigma her husband presented to his mind; but he had not complete freedom of ideas, because he was in an agony of embarrassment.  This agony of embarrassment was due to the fact that the sister-in-law was sitting opposite to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he fancied, for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of a trapeze, on her white bosom.  This quadrangular opening, in spite of the bosom’s being very white, or just because it was very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties.  He imagined, probably mistakenly, that this low-necked bodice had been made on his account, and felt that he had no right to look at it, and tried not to look at it; but he felt that he was to blame for the very fact of the low-necked bodice having been made.  It seemed to Levin that he had deceived someone, that he ought to explain something, but that to explain it was impossible, and for that reason he was continually blushing, was ill at ease and awkward.  His awkwardness infected the pretty sister-in-law too.  But their hostess appeared not to observe this, and kept purposely drawing her into the conversation.

“You say,” she said, pursuing the subject that had been started, “that my husband cannot be interested in what’s Russian.  It’s quite the contrary; he is always in cheerful spirits abroad, but not as he is here.  Here, he feels in his proper place.  He has so much to do, and he has the faculty of interesting himself in everything.  Oh, you’ve not been to see our school, have you?”