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 not wanting to be away from his brother, from whom emanated such a spirit of freshness and good cheer. "If you must go the office, I'll go with you."

"O ye saints!" exclaimed Levin, so loud that Sergyeï Ivanovitch was startled.

"What's the matter?"

"Agafya Mikhaïlovna's hand," said Levin, striking his forehead. "I had forgotten all about her."

"She is much better."

"Well, I must go to her, all the same. I'll be back before you get on your hat."

And he started down-stairs on the run, his heels clattering on the steps.

CHAPTER VII

the time Stepan Arkadyevitch was off to Petersburg to fulfil the most natural of obligations, without which the service could not exist, unquestioned by all functionaries, however unimportant for non-functionaries—that of reporting to the ministry, and while fulfilling this obligation, being well supplied with money, was enjoying himself at the races and his friends' datchas, Dolly, with the children, was on her way to the country, in order to reduce the expenses as much as possible. She was going to their country-place at Yergushovo, an estate which had been a part of her dowry. It was where the wood had been sold in the spring, and was situated about fifty versts from Levin's Pokrovsky.

The large old mansion at Yergushovo had long been demolished, and the prince had contented himself with enlarging and repairing one of the wings. Twenty years before, when Dolly was a little girl, this wing was spacious and comfortable, though, in the manner of all wings, it stood sidewise as regarded the avenue and the south. But now this wing was old and out of repair. When Stepan Arkadyevitch went down in the spring to sell the wood, Dolly asked him to look over