"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
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."