fancy, they
gave me drink, fed me! Such bread, it was exquisite! _Delicieux!_
And the vodka, I never tasted any better. And they would not
take a penny for anything. And they kept saying: 'Excuse our
homely ways.'"

"What should they take anything for? They were entertaining you,
to be sure. Do you suppose they keep vodka for sale?" said the
soldier, succeeding at last in pulling the soaked boot off the
blackened stocking.

In spite of the dirtiness of the hut, which was all muddied by
their boots and the filthy dogs licking themselves clean, and the
smell of marsh mud and powder that filled the room, and the
absence of knives and forks, the party drank their tea and ate
their supper with a relish only known to sportsmen. Washed and
clean, they went into a hay-barn swept ready for them, where the
coachman had been making up beds for the gentlemen.

Though it was dusk, not one of them wanted to go to sleep.

After wavering among reminiscences and anecdotes of guns, of
dogs, and of former shooting parties, the conversation rested on
a topic that interested all of them. After Vassenka had several
times over expressed his appreciation of this delightful
sleeping place among the fragrant hay, this delightful broken
cart (he supposed it to be broken because the shafts had been
taken out), of the good nature of the peasants that had treated
him to vodka, of the dogs who lay at the feet of their respective
masters, Oblonsky began telling them of a delightful shooting
party at Malthus's, where he had stayed the previous summer.

Malthus was a well-known capitalist, who had made his money by
speculation in railway shares. Stepan Arkadyevitch described
what grouse moors this Malthus had bought in the Tver province,
and how they were preserved, and of the carriages and dogcarts in
which the shooting party had been driven, and the luncheon
pavilion that had been rigged up at the marsh.

"I don't understand you," said Levin, sitting up in the hay; "how
is it such people don't disgust you? I can understand a lunch
with Lafitte is all very pleasant, but don't you dislike just
that very sumptuousness? All these people, just like our spirit
monopolists in old days, get their money in a way that gains them
the contempt of everyone. They don't care for their contempt,
and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt
they have deserved."

"Perfectly true!" chimed in Vassenka Veslovsky. "Perfectly!
Ob