p like a sound cheese, hard as a
knob of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat.

"What biceps! A perfect Samson!"

"I imagine great strength is needed for hunting bears," observed
Alexey Alexandrovitch, who had the mistiest notions about the
chase. He cut off and spread with cheese a wafer of bread fine
as a spider-web.

Levin smiled.

"Not at all. Quite the contrary; a child can kill a bear," he
said, with a slight bow moving aside for the ladies, who were
approaching the table.

"You have killed a bear, I've been told!" said Kitty, trying
assiduously to catch with her fork a perverse mushroom that would
slip away, and setting the lace quivering over her white arm.
"Are there bears on your place?" she added, turning her charming
little head to him and smiling.

There was apparently nothing extraordinary in what she said, but
what unutterable meaning there was for him in every sound, in
every turn of her lips, her eyes, her hand as she said it! There
was entreaty for forgiveness, and trust in him, and tenderness--
soft, timid tenderness--and promise and hope and love for him,
which he could not but believe in and which choked him with
happiness.

"No, we've been hunting in the Tver province. It was coming back
from there that I met your _beaufrere_ in the train, or your
_beaufrere's_ brother-in-law," he said with a smile. "It was an
amusing meeting."

And he began telling with droll good-humor how, after not
sleeping all night, he had, wearing an old fur-lined,
full-skirted coat, got into Alexey Alexandrovitch's compartment.

"The conductor, forgetting the proverb, would have chucked me out
on account of my attire; but thereupon I began expressing my
feelings in elevated language, and...you, too," he said,
addressing Karenin and forgetting his name, "at first would have
ejected me on the ground of the old coat, but afterwards you took
my part, for which I am extremely grateful."

"The rights of passengers generally to choose their seats are too
ill-defined," said Alexey Alexandrovitch, rubbing the tips of his
fingers on his handkerchief.

"I saw you were in uncertainty about me," said Levin, smiling
good-naturedly, "but I made haste to plunge into intellectual
conversation to smooth over the defects of my attire."
Sergey Ivanovitch, while he kept up a conversation with their
hostess, had one ear for his brother, and he glanced askance at
him. "What is the matter with him today? Why such a con