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 and chest black and wet, came into the room and joined him, full of lively talk.

"Well! we mowed the whole meadow. Akh! How good, how delightful! And how has the day passed with you?" he asked, completely forgetting the unpleasant conversation of the evening before.

"Ye saints! How you look!" exclaimed Sergyeï Ivanovitch, staring at first not over-pleasantly at his brother. "There, shut the door, shut the door!" he cried. "You've certainly let in more than a dozen!"

Sergyeï Ivanovitch could not endure flies; and he never opened his bedroom windows except at night, and he made it a point to keep his doors always shut.

"Indeed, not a one! If I have, I'll catch him!.... If you knew what fun I've had! And how has it gone with you?"

"First-rate. But you don't mean to say that you have been mowing all day? You must be hungry as a wolf. Kuzma has your dinner all ready for you."

"No; I am not hungry. I ate yonder. But I'm going to polish myself up."

"All right, I'll join you later," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch, shaking his head and gazing at his brother. "Be quick about it," he added, with a smile, arranging his papers and getting ready to follow; he also suddenly felt enlivened, and was unwilling to be away from his brother. "Well, but where were you during the shower?"

"What shower? Only a drop or two fell. I'll soon be back. And did the day go pleasantly with you? Well, that's capital!"

And Levin went to dress.

About five minutes afterwards the brothers met in the dining-room. Although Levin imagined that he was not hungry, and he sat down only so as not to hurt Kuzma's feelings, yet when he once began eating, he found it excellent. Sergyeï Ivanovitch looked at him with a smile.

"Oh, yes, there 's a letter for you," he said. "Kuzma, go and get it. Be careful and see that you shut the door."