`Yes; I used to teach in it myself, and do teach still, but we have a first-rate schoolmistress now. And we've started gymnastic exercises.'

`No, thank you, I won't have any more tea,' said Levin, and conscious of doing a rude thing, but incapable of continuing the conversation, he got up, blushing. `I hear a very interesting conversation,' he added, and walked to the other end of the table, where Sviiazhsky was sitting with the two gentlemen of the neighborhood. Sviiazhsky was sitting sideways, with one elbow on the table, and a cup in one hand, while with the other hand he gathered up his beard, held it to his nose and let it drop again, as though he were smelling it. His brilliant black eyes were looking directly at the excited country gentleman with gray mustaches, and apparently he derived amusement from his remarks. The gentleman was complaining of the peasants. It was evident to Levin that Sviiazhsky knew the answer to this gentleman's complaints, which would at once demolish his whole contention, but that in his position he could not give utterance to this answer, and listened, not without pleasure, to the landowner's comic talk.

The gentleman with the gray mustaches was obviously an inveterate adherent of serfdom and a devoted agriculturist, who had lived all his life in the country. Levin saw proofs of this in his dress, in his old- fashioned threadbare coat, obviously not his everyday attire, in his shrewd, deep-set eyes, in his coherent Russian, in the imperious tone that had become habitual from long use, and in the resolute gestures of his large, beautiful sunburned hands, with a single old wedding ring on his fourth finger.