Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/474

 "Here is Parfen Denisuitch: although he could not read, yet may God give us all to die as he did!" said she, referring to a household servant who had recently died. "They confessed him and gave him extreme unction."

"I did not mean that," said he; "I mean that I am working for my own profit. It will be more profitable to me if the muzhiks will work better."

"There! you will only have your labor for your pains. The lazy will be lazy and always do things over his left shoulder. Where he has a conscience, he'll work; if not, nothing will be done."

"Well, well! But don't you yourself say that Ivan is beginning to look out for the cows better?"

"I say this one thing," replied Agafya Mikhaïlovna, evidently not at random but with a keen logical connection of thought: "You must get married, that 's what."

Agafya Mikhaïlovna's observation about the very matter that preoccupied him angered him and insulted him. He frowned, and, without replying, sat down to his work again, repeating to himself all that he had thought about the importance of his work. Occasionally amid the silence he noticed the clicking of Agafya Mikhaïlovna's needles; and, remembering what he did not wish to remember, he would frown.

At nine o'clock the sound of bells was heard, and the heavy rumbling of a carriage on the muddy road.

"There! here's some visitors coming to see you: you won't be bored any more," said Agafya Mikhaïlovna, rising, and going to the door. But Levin stepped ahead of her. His work did not progress now, and he was glad to see any guest.

CHAPTER XXXI

Levin got halfway down-stairs he heard in the vestibule the sound of a familiar cough; but the sound was covered by the noise of his own footsteps, and he hoped that he was mistaken. Then he saw the