Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and listening to the bees that buzzed more and more frequently past him, he walked along the little path to the hut.  In the very entry one bee hummed angrily, caught in his beard, but he carefully extricated it.  Going into the shady outer room, he took down from the wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the fenced-in bee-garden, where there stood in the midst of a closely mown space in regular rows, fastened with bast on posts, all the hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history, and along the fences the younger swarms hived that year.  In front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to watch the bees and drones whirling round and round about the same spot, while among them the working bees flew in and out with spoils or in search of them, always in the same direction into the wood to the flowering lime trees and back to the hives.

His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes, now the busy hum of the working bee flying quickly off, then the blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on guard protecting their property from the enemy and preparing to sting.  On the farther side of the fence the old bee-keeper was shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin.  Levin stood still in the midst of the beehives and did not call him.

He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy mood.  He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to talk flippantly with Katavasov.

“Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace?” he thought.  But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had happened to him.  Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was still untouched within him.

Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and distracting his attention, prevented him from enjoying complete physical peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the petty cares that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into the trap restricted his spiritual freedom; but that lasted only so long as he was among them.  Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in spite of the bees, so too was the spiritual strength that he had just become aware of.

Chapter 15

“Do you know, Kostya, with whom Sergey Ivanovitch traveled on his way here?” said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the children; “with Vronsky!  He’s going to Servia.”

“And not alone; he’s taking a squadron out with him at his own expense,” said Katavasov.

“That’s the right thing for him,” said Levin.  “Are volunteers still going out then?” he added, glancing at Sergey Ivanovitch.