lent families, belonging to the most cultivated classes,—talents and intellect are another matter,—who never abased themselves before anybody, and were never dependent on others,—like my father and grandfather. And I know many such. It seems small business to you that I count my trees, while you give thirty thousand rubles to Rabinin: but you receive a salary, and other things; and I receive nothing of the sort, and therefore I appreciate what my father left me, and what my labor gives me We are the aristocrats, and not those who live only by means of what the powers of this world dole out to them, and who can be bought for a copper."
"There! whom are you so angry with? I agree with you," replied Stepan Arkadyevitch, sincerely and gayly, though he knew that when Levin hurled his sarcasms at those who could be bought for a copper, he meant him. But Levin's animation really pleased him. "Whom are you angry with? Though much of what you say about Vronsky is not true, still I won't speak about that. I will tell you frankly that if I were in your place, I would start for Moscow, and ...."
"No! I don't know whether you know or not,—but it's over for me. I will tell you. I proposed and was rejected; so that now the memory of Katerina Aleksandrovna is painful and humiliating."
"Why so? What nonsense!"
"But let us not speak of it. Forgive me if I have been rude to you," said Levin. Now that he had made a clean breast of it, he began once more to feel as he had felt in the morning. "You will not be angry with me, Stiva? I beg of you, don't be angry with me," said he, and with a smile he took his hand.
"Of course not. I will not think anything more about it. I am very glad, though, that we have spoken frankly to each other. And, do you know, sport will be capital to-morrow. We can try it again, can't we? In that case I would not even sleep, but go straight from the grove to the station."
"Capital!"
