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Olga Mihalovna remembered her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when "his spouse nagged at him" at night, he usually picked up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. This officer was married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect but simply put up with.
Olga Mihalovna remembered her guests and hurried into the drawing-room. "I have so enjoyed your playing," she said, going up to the piano. "I have so enjoyed it. You have a wonderful talent! But don't you think our piano's out of tune?" At that moment the two schoolboys walked into the room, accompanied by the student. "My goodness!
Olga Mihalovna began peeping through a crack between two branches. She saw her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, and Lubotchka Sheller, a girl of seventeen who had not long left boarding-school.
"Perhaps! There are shameless creatures who . . . ." Natalya Mihalovna suddenly jumped up from her chair, as though she had thought of something dreadful; for half a minute she looked with frightened eyes at her husband and said, accentuating each word: "Vassitchka, I say, the im-mo-ral women there are in the world! Ah, how immoral!
The guests were wearied by this discussion, but they all thought it necessary to take part in it, and talked a great deal, although none of them took any interest in trial by jury or the higher education of women. . . . Olga Mihalovna was sitting on the nearest side of the hurdle near the shanty. The sun was hidden behind the clouds.
All the guests were sauntering about the garden. "I shall have to suggest a walk in the birchwood before tea, or else a row in the boats," thought Olga Mihalovna, hurrying to the croquet ground, from which came the sounds of voices and laughter. "And sit the old people down to vint. . . ." She met Grigory the footman coming from the croquet ground with empty bottles.
"Oh, Agafea Mihalovna," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, kissing the tips of his plump fingers, "what salt goose, what herb brandy!...What do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostya?" he added. Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare tree-tops of the forest. "Yes, it's time," he said. "Kouzma, get ready the trap," and he ran downstairs.
There was perfect stillness in the air wrapped in slumber and darkness. Even the watchman, paid to disturb the stillness of night, was silent; even the corncrake the only wild creature of the feathered tribe that does not shun the proximity of summer visitors was silent. The stillness was broken by Marya Mihalovna herself.
Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed. To her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever. The house was her own, but so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitritch. Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper. There was a candle burning on a chair near him. His face could not be seen behind the newspaper.
And he too, most likely, had an Agafea Mihalovna to whom he confided his secrets." Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the darkness. The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and brought part of the money for the wheat.
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