speak. The colonel also talked about the opera and about an illumination. Then, saying something about a supposititious folle journée at Turin, the colonel, laughing, got up, and took his departure. Levin also got up, but a look of surprise on the countess's face told him that it was not yet time for him to go. Two minutes more at least were necessary. He sat down.
But, as he thought what a foolish figure he was cutting, he was more and more incapable of finding a subject of conversation.
"Are you going to the public meeting?" asked the countess. "They say it will be very interesting."
"No, but I promised my belle-soeur that I would call for her there," replied Levin.
Silence again ensued; the mother exchanged a look with her daughter.
"Now it must be time to go," thought Levin; and he rose. The ladies shook hands with him, and charged him with mille choses for his wife.
The Swiss, as he put on his shuba for him, asked his address, and wrote it gravely in a large, handsomely bound book.
"Of course, it's all the same to me; but how useless and ridiculous it all is!" thought Levin, comforting himself with the thought that every one did the same thing, and he went to the public meeting of the committee, where he was to find his sister-in-law to bring her home with him.
At the public meeting of the committee there was a great throng of people, and society was well represented. Levin reached the place just in time to hear a sketch which all said was very interesting. When the reading of the sketch was finished, society came together, and Levin met Sviazhsky, who invited him to come that very evening to a meeting of the Society of Rural Economy, [1] at which a very important report was to be read. He also met Stepan Arkadyevitch, who had just returned from the races, and many other acquaintances, and Levin talked much and heard many opinions relating to
- ↑ Obshchestvo sielskava khozyaïstva.
