he said, and as it was utterly of no
consequence to him what they thought of him, he began repeating
what they had heard a hundred times about the characteristics of
the singer's talent. Countess Bola pretended to be listening.
Then, when he had said enough and paused, the colonel, who had
been silent till then, began to talk. The colonel too talked of
the opera, and about culture. At last, after speaking of the
proposed _folle journee_ at Turin's, the colonel laughed, got up
noisily, and went away. Levin too rose, but he saw by the face
of the countess that it was not yet time for him to go. He must
stay two minutes longer. He sat down.

But as he was thinking all the while how stupid it was, he could
not find a subject for conversation, and sat silent.

"You are not going to the public meeting? They say it will be
very interesting," began the countess.

"No, I promised my belle-soeur to fetch her from it," said
Levin.

A silence followed. The mother once more exchanged glances with
a daughter.

"Well, now I think the time has come," thought Levin, and he got
up. The ladies shook hands with him, and begged him to say
_mille choses_ to his wife for them.

The porter asked him, as he gave him his coat, "Where is your
honor staying?" and immediately wrote down his address in a big
handsomely bound book.

"Of course I don't care, but still I feel ashamed and awfully
stupid," thought Levin, consoling himself with the reflection
that everyone does it. He drove to the public meeting, where he
was to find his sister-in-law, so as to drive home with her.

At the public meeting of the committee there were a great many
people, and almost all the highest society. Levin was in time
for the report which, as everyone said, was very interesting.
When the reading of the report was over, people moved about, and
Levin met Sviazhsky, who invited him very pressingly to come that
evening to a meeting of the Society of Agriculture, where a
celebrated lecture was to be delivered, and Stepan Arkadyevitch,
who had only just come from the races, and many other
acquaintances; and Levin heard and uttered various criticisms on
the meeting, on the new fantasia, and on a public trial. But,
probably from the mental fatigue he was beginning to feel, he
made a blunder in speaking of the trial, and this blunder he
recalled several times with vexation. Speaking of the sentence
upon a foreigner who had been condemned in Russia, a