When Levin and Stepan Arkadyevitch reached the peasant's hut

where Levin always used to stay, Veslovsky was already there. He

was sitting in the middle of the hut, clinging with both hands to

the bench from which he was being pulled by a soldier, the

brother of the peasant's wife, who was helping him off with his

miry boots. Veslovsky was laughing his infectious, good-humored

laugh.

"I've only just come. _Ils ont été charmants_. Just fancy, they

gave me drink, fed me! Such bread, it was exquisite! _Delicieux!_

And the vodka, I never tasted any better. And they would not

take a penny for anything. And they kept saying: 'Excuse our

homely ways.'"

"What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you,

to be sure. Do you suppose they keep vodka for sale?" said the

soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the

blackened stocking.

In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by

their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean, and the

smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room, and the

absence of knives and forks, the party drank their tea and ate

their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and

clean, they went into a hay-barn swept ready for them, where the

coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen.

Though it was dusk, not one of them wanted to go to sleep.

After wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns, of

dogs, and of former shooting parties, the conversation rested on

a topic that interested all of them. After Vassenka had several

times over expressed his appreciation of this delightful

sleeping place among the fragrant hay, this delightful broken

cart (he supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been

taken out), of the good nature of the peasants that had treated

him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective

masters, Oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting

party at Malthus's, where he had stayed the previous summer.

Malthus was a well-known capitalist, who had made his money by

speculation in railway shares. Stepan Arkadyevitch described

what grouse moors this Malthus had bought in the Tver province,

and how they were preserved, and of the carriages and dogcarts in

which the shooting party had been driven, and the luncheon

pavilion that had been rigged up at the marsh.

"I don't understand you," said Levin, sitting up in the hay; "how

is it such people don't disgust you? I can understand a lunch

with Lafitte is all very pleasant, but don't you dislike just

that very sumptuousness? All these people, just like our spirit

monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them

the contempt of everyone. They don't care for their contempt,

and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt

they have deserved."




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