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 that Vronsky, where is he now?" he suddenly asked, putting down the soap.

"Vronsky?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, ceasing to yawn. "He is at Petersburg. He went away shortly after you did, and has not been in Moscow since. And do you know, Kostia," he continued, leaning his elbow on a little table placed near the head of the bed, and resting his handsome ruddy face on his hand, while two oily, good-natured, and sleepy eyes shone out like twin stars, "I am going to tell you the truth. You yourself were to blame. You were afraid of a rival. And I will remind you of what I said: I don't know which of you had the best chances. Why didn't you go ahead? I told you then that .... "

He yawned again, with his jaws only, trying not to open his mouth.

"Does he, or does n't he, know that I offered myself?" thought Levin, looking at him. "Yes! there is something subtle, something diplomatic, in his face;" and, feeling that he was flushing, he said nothing, but looked straight into Oblonsky's eyes.

"If on her part there was any feeling for him, it was merely a slight drawing," continued Oblonsky. "You know, that absolutely high breeding of his and the chances of position in the world had an effect on her mother, but not on her."

Levin frowned. The humiliation of his rejection, with which he was suffering as from a recent wound, smarted in his heart. Fortunately, he was at home; and the very walls of the home sustain one.

"Wait! wait!" he interrupted; "you said, 'high breeding'! But let me ask you, what means this high breeding of Vronsky, or any one else—a high breeding that could look down on me. You consider Vronsky an aristocrat. I don't. A man whose father sprang from nothing, by means of intrigue, whose mother has had liaisons with God knows whom .... Oh, no, excuse me! Aristocrats, in my opinion, are men like myself, who can show in the past three or four generations of excel-