.

"Oh, it's a work of real importance!" said Sviazhsky. But to
show he was not trying to ingratiate himself with Vronsky, he
promptly added some slightly critical remarks.

"I wonder, though, count," he said, "that while you do so much
for the health of the peasants, you take so little interest in
the schools."

"_C'est devenu tellement commun les ecoles,_" said Vronsky. "You
understand it's not on that account, but it just happens so, my
interest has been diverted elsewhere. This way then to the
hospital," he said to Darya Alexandrovna, pointing to a turning
out of the avenue.

The ladies put up their parasols and turned into the side path.
After going down several turnings, and going through a little
gate, Darya Alexandrovna saw standing on rising ground before her
a large pretentious-looking red building, almost finished. The
iron roof, which was not yet painted, shone with dazzling
brightness in the sunshine. Beside the finished building another
had been begun, surrounded by scaffolding. Workmen in aprons,
standing on scaffolds, were laying bricks, pouring mortar out of
vats, and smoothing it with trowels.

"How quickly work gets done with you!" said Sviazhsky. "When I
was here last time the roof was not on."

"By the autumn it will all be ready. Inside almost everything is
done," said Anna.

"And what's this new building?"

"That's the house for the doctor and the dispensary," answered
Vronsky, seeing the architect in a short jacket coming towards
him; and excusing himself to the ladies, he went to meet him.

Going round a hole where the workmen were slaking lime, he stood
still with the architect and began talking rather warmly.

"The front is still too low," he said to Anna, who had asked what
was the matter.

"I said the foundation ought to be raised," said Anna.

"Yes, of course it would have been much better, Anna Arkadyevna,"
said the architect, "but now it's too late."

"Yes, I take a great interest in it," Anna answered Sviazhsky,
who was expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture.
"This new building ought to have been in harmony with the
hospital. It was an afterthought, and was begun without a plan."

Vronsky, having finished his talk with the architect, joined the
ladies, and led them inside the hospital.

Although they were still at work on the cornices outside and were
painting on the ground floor, upstairs almost all the rooms were
finished. Going up the