."

"Here am I too," said the old prince. "I've been staying abroad
and reading the papers, and I must own, up to the time of the
Bulgarian atrocities, I couldn't make out why it was all the
Russians were all of a sudden so fond of their Slavonic brethren,
while I didn't feel the slightest affection for them. I was very
much upset, thought I was a monster, or that it was the influence
of Carlsbad on me. But since I have been here, my mind's been
set at rest. I see that there are people besides me who're only
interested in Russia, and not in their Slavonic brethren. Here's
Konstantin too."

"Personal opinions mean nothing in such a case," said Sergey
Ivanovitch; "it's not a matter of personal opinions when all
Russia--the whole people--has expressed its will."

"But excuse me, I don't see that. The people don't know anything
about it, if you come to that," said the old prince.

"Oh, papa!...how can you say that? And last Sunday in church?"
said Dolly, listening to the conversation. "Please give me a
cloth," she said to the old man, who was looking at the children
with a smile. "Why, it's not possible that all..."

"But what was it in church on Sunday? The priest had been told
to read that. He read it. They didn't understand a word of it.
Then they were told that there was to be a collection for a pious
object in church; well, they pulled out their halfpence and gave
them, but what for they couldn't say."

"The people cannot help knowing; the sense of their own destinies
is always in the people, and at such moments as the present that
sense finds utterance," said Sergey Ivanovitch with conviction,
glancing at the old bee-keeper.

The handsome old man, with black grizzled beard and thick silvery
hair, stood motionless, holding a cup of honey, looking down from
the height of his tall figure with friendly serenity at the
gentlefolk, obviously understanding nothing of their conversation
and not caring to understand it.

"That's so, no doubt," he said, with a significant shake of his
head at Sergey Ivanovitch's words.

"Here, then, ask him. He knows nothing about it and thinks
nothing," said Levin. "Have you heard about the war, Mihalitch?"
he said, turning to him. "What they read in the church? What do
you think about it? Ought we to fight for the Christians?"

"What should we think? Alexander Nikolaevitch our Emperor has
thought for us; he thinks for us indeed in all things. It's
clearer for hi