adyevna talking yesterday about
plinths and damp-courses," said Veslovsky. "Have I got it
right?"

"There's nothing marvelous about it, when one sees and hears so
much of it," said Anna. "But, I dare say, you don't even know
what houses are made of?"

Darya Alexandrovna saw that Anna disliked the tone of raillery
that existed between her and Veslovsky, but fell in with it
against her will.

Vronsky acted in this matter quite differently from Levin. He
obviously attached no significance to Veslovsky's chattering; on
the contrary, he encouraged his jests.

"Come now, tell us, Veslovsky, how are the stones held together?"

"By cement, of course."

"Bravo! And what is cement?"

"Oh, some sort of paste...no, putty," said Veslovsky, raising
a general laugh.

The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the
architect, and the steward, who remained plunged in gloomy
silence, kept up a conversation that never paused, glancing off
one subject, fastening on another, and at times stinging one or
the other to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to
the quick, and got so hot that she positively flushed and
wondered afterwards whether she had said anything extreme or
unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin, describing his
strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its effects
on Russian agriculture.

"I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin," Vronsky said,
smiling, "but most likely he has never seen the machines he
condemns; or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been
after a queer fashion, some Russian imitation, not a machine from
abroad. What sort of views can anyone have on such a subject?"

"Turkish views, in general," Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with
a smile.

"I can't defend his opinions," Darya Alexandrovna said, firing
up; "but I can say that he's a highly cultivated man, and if he
were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am
not capable of doing so."

"I like him extremely, and we are great friends," Sviazhsky said,
smiling good-naturedly. "_Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toque;_
he maintains, for instance, that district councils and
arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take
part in anything."

"It's our Russian apathy," said Vronsky, pouring water from an
iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; "we've no
sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we
refuse to recogni