`I live alone in the country, as I always have. I'm busy looking after the land,' answered Konstantin, watching with horror the greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying to conceal that he noticed it.

`Why don't you get married?'

`No opportunity has presented itself,' Konstantin answered, reddening.

`Why not? For me now, everything's at an end! I've made a mess of my life. But this I've said, and I say still, that if my share had been given me when I needed it, my whole life would have been different.'

Konstantin made haste to change the conversation.

`Do you know your little Vania's with me - a clerk in the countinghouse at Pokrovskoe?'

Nikolai jerked his neck, and sank into thought.

`Yes, tell me what's going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house still standing, and the birch trees, and our schoolroom? And Philip the gardener - is he living? How I remember the summerhouse and the sofa! Now mind and don't alter anything in the house, but make haste and get married, and make everything as it used to be again. Then I'll come and see you, if your wife is a fine woman.'

`Why, come to me now,' said Levin. `How snugly we could settle down!'

`I'd come and see you if I were sure I shouldn't find Sergei Ivanovich.'

`You wouldn't find him there. I live quite independently of him.'

`Yes, but say what you like, you have to choose between me and him,' he said, looking timidly into his brother's face.

This timidity touched Konstantin.

`If you want to hear my confession of faith on the subject, I tell you that in your quarrel with Sergei Ivanovich I take neither side. You're both wrong. You're rather wrong outwardly, and he, rather inwardly.'

`Ah, ah! You see that, you see that!' Nikolai shouted joyfully.

`But I personally value friendly relations with you more because...'

`Why, why?'

Konstantin could not say that he valued it more because Nikolai was unhappy, and needed affection. But Nikolai knew that this was just what he meant to say, and scowling he took to the vodka again.

`Enough, Nikolai Dmitrich!' said Marya Nikolaevna, stretching out her plump, bare arm toward the decanter.

`Let it be! Don't annoy me! I'll beat you!' he shouted.

Marya Nikolaevna smiled a sweet and good-humored smile, which was at once reflected on Nikolai's face, and whisked the decanter off.

`And do you suppose she understands nothing?' said Nikolai. `She understands everything better than all of us. Tell the truth - isn't there something good and sweet about her?'

`Were you never before in Moscow?' Konstantin said to her, for the sake of saying something.