But Katavassov's serene and good-humored expression suddenly struck him, and he felt such tenderness for his own happy mood, which he was unmistakably disturbing by this conversation, that he remembered his resolution and stopped short.

`But we'll talk later on,' he added. `If we're going to the apiary, it's this way, along this little path,' he said, addressing them all.

Going along the narrow path to a little uncut meadow covered on one side with thick clumps of brilliant heartsease, among which stood up here and there tall, dark green tufts of hellebore, Levin settled his guests in the dense, cool shade of the young aspens on a bench and some stumps purposely put there for visitors to the apiary who might be afraid of the bees, and he went off himself to the hut to get bread, cucumbers, and fresh honey, to regale them with.

Trying to make his movements as deliberate as possible, and listening to the bees that buzzed more and more frequently past him, he walked along the little path to the hut. In the very entry one bee hummed angrily, caught in his beard, but he carefully extricated it. Going into the shady outer room, he took down from the wall his veil, that hung on a peg, and putting it on, and thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went into the fenced-in bee garden, where there stood in the midst of a closely mown space in regular rows, fastened with bast on posts, all the hives he knew so well, the old stocks, each with its own history, and along the fences the younger swarms hived that year. In front of the openings of the hives, it made his eyes giddy to watch the bees and drones whirling round and round about the same spot, while among them the worker bees flew in and out with spoils, or in search of them, always in the same direction, into the wood, to the flowering linden trees, and back to the hives.

His ears were filled with the incessant hum in various notes - now the busy hum of the worker bee flying quickly off, then the blaring of the lazy drone, and the excited buzz of the bees on guard, protecting their property from the enemy and preparing to sting. On the farther side of the fence the old beekeeper was shaving a hoop for a tub, and he did not see Levin. Levin stood still in the midst of the apiary and did not call him.

He was glad of a chance to be alone to recover from the influence of ordinary actual life, which had already depressed his happy mood.

He thought that he had already had time to lose his temper with Ivan, to show coolness to his brother, and to talk flippantly with Katavassov.

`Can it have been only a momentary mood, and will it pass and leave no trace?' he thought.

But the same instant, going back to his mood, he felt with delight that something new and important had happened to him. Real life had only for a time overcast the spiritual peace he had found, but it was still untouched within him.

Just as the bees, whirling round him, now menacing him and distracting his attention, prevented him from enjoying complete physical peace, forced him to restrain his movements to avoid them, so had the petty cares that had swarmed about him from the moment he got into the trap, restricted his spiritual freedom; but that lasted only so long as he was among them. Just as his bodily strength was still unaffected, in spite of the bees, so too was the spiritual strength that he had just become aware of.