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 ing that he had already made this remark, he grew red in the face.

Vronsky looked at Levin and the countess, and smiled.

"So, then, you always live in the country?" he asked. "I should think it would be tiresome in winter."

"Not if one has enough to do; besides, one does not get tired of himself," said Levin, sharply.

"I like the country," said Vronsky, noticing Levin's tone and appearing not to notice it.

"But, count, I hope you would not consent to live always in the country," said the Countess Nordstone.

"I don't know; I never made a long stay, but I once felt a strange sensation," he added. "Never have I so eagerly longed for the country, the real Russian country with its bast shoes and its muzhiks, as during the winter that I spent at Nice with my mother. Nice, you know, is melancholy anyway; and Naples, Sorrento, are pleasant only for a short time. There it is that one remembers Russia most tenderly, and especially the country. They are almost as .... "

He spoke, now addressing Kitty, now Levin, turning his calm and friendly eyes from one to the other, and he evidently said whatever came into his head.

Noticing that the Countess Nordstone wanted to say something, he stopped, without finishing his phrase, and began to listen to her attentively.

The conversation did not languish a single instant, so that the old princess, who always had in reserve two heavy guns, in case there needed to be a change in the conversation,—namely, classic and scientific education, and the general compulsory conscription,—had no need to bring them out, and the Countess Nordstone did not even have a chance to rally Levin.

Levin wanted to join in the general conversation, but was unable. He kept saying to himself, "Now, I'll go;" and still he waited as if he expected something.

The conversation turned on table-tipping and spirits; and the Countess Nordstone, who was a believer in spiritism, began to relate the marvels that she had seen.