e, it's this way, along this little path," he said,
addressing them all.

Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on
one side with thick clumps of brilliant heart's-ease among which
stood up here and there tall, dark green tufts of hellebore,
Levin settled his guests in the dense, cool shade of the young
aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for
visitors to the bee house who might be afraid of the bees, and he
went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh
honey, to regale them with.

Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and
listening to the bees that buzzed more and more frequently past
him, he walked along the little path to the hut. In the very
entry one bee hummed angrily, caught in his beard, but he
carefully extricated it. Going into the shady outer room, he
took down from the wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting
it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the
fenced-in bee-garden, where there stood in the midst of a closely
mown space in regular rows, fastened with bast on posts, all the
hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history,
and along the fences the younger swarms hived that year. In
front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to
watch the bees and drones whirling round and round about the same
spot, while among them the working bees flew in and out with
spoils or in search of them, always in the same direction into
the wood to the flowering lime trees and back to the hives.

His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes, now
the busy hum of the working bee flying quickly off, then the
blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on
guard protecting their property from the enemy and preparing to
sting. On the farther side of the fence the old bee-keeper was
shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin. Levin stood
still in the midst of the beehives and did not call him.

He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence
of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy
mood. He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper
with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to talk
flippantly with Katavasov.

"Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and
leave no trace?" he thought. But the same instant, going back to
his mood, he felt with delight that something new and i