architect, smiling. .... He had a sense of the dignity of his calling, and was a very worthy and self-possessed gentleman. .... "You don't do such work under government patronage. When they would write reams of paper, I simply lay the plan before the count, we talk it over, and three words decide it."
"American ways," suggested Sviazhsky, smiling.
"Yes! buildings there are raised rationally." ....
The conversation then went off on the abuse of power in the United States; but Anna immediately started him on a third theme, in order to bring out the superintendent from his silence.
"Have you ever seen the steam reaping-machines?" she asked of Darya Aleksandrovna. "We had just been to see ours when we met you. I never saw one before."
"How do they work?" asked Dolly.
"Just like scissors. A plank and a quantity of little knives. Like this!"
Anna took a knife and fork into her beautiful white hands covered with rings, and tried to show her. She apparently saw that she did not make herself very clear, but, knowing that she spoke pleasantly and that her, hands were beautiful, she continued her explanations.
"Better say pen-knives!" said Veslovsky, with an attempt at a pun,[1] and not taking his eyes from her.
Anna smiled almost imperceptibly, but made no reply to his remark.
"Am I not right, Karl, that they are like scissors?" she said, appealing to the director.
"Oh, ja," replied the German. "Es ist ein ganz einfaches Ding;" [2] and he began to explain the construction of the machine.
"It is too bad that it does not bind the sheaves. I saw one at the Vienna Exposition; it bound them with wire," said Sviazhsky. "That kind would be much more convenient."
"Es kommt drauf an Der Preis von Draht muss
