the hall, yawning and wondering at
the strange humor his friend was in. It was past one o'clock.
Levin went back to his hotel, and was dismayed at the thought
that all alone now with his impatience he had ten hours still
left to get through. The servant, whose turn it was to be up all
night, lighted his candles, and would have gone away, but Levin
stopped him. This servant, Yegor, whom Levin had noticed before,
struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and, above all,
good-hearted man.

"Well, Yegor, it's hard work not sleeping, isn't it?"

"One's got to put up with it! It's part of our work, you see.
In a gentleman's house it's easier; but then here one makes
more."

It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a daughter, a
sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a cashier in a saddler's
shop.

Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his opinion, in
marriage the great thing was love, and that with love one would
always be happy, for happiness rests only on oneself. Yegor
listened attentively, and obviously quite took in Levin's idea,
but by way of assent to it he enunciated, greatly to Levin's
surprise, the observation that when he had lived with good
masters he had always been satisfied with his masters, and now
was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he was a
Frenchman.

"Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!" thought Levin.

"Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you
love your wife?"

"Ay! and why not?" responded Yegor.

And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and
intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions.

"My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up..." he
was beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin's
enthusiasm, just as people catch yawning.

But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin
was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had
refused tea and supper at Sviazhsky's, but he was incapable of
thinking of supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was
incapable of thinking of sleep either. His room was cold, but he
was oppressed by heat. He opened both the movable panes in his
window and sat down to the table opposite the open panes. Over
the snow-covered roofs could be seen a decorated cross with
chains, and above it the rising triangle of Charles's Wain with
the yellowish light of Capella. He gazed at the cross, then at
the stars, drank in the fresh