“Good day, Vassily,” he said, walking into the corridor with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a footman he knew; “why, you’ve let your whiskers grow! Levin, number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And find out whether Count Anitchkin” (this was the new head) “is receiving.”

“Yes, sir,” Vassily responded, smiling. “You’ve not been to see us for a long while.”

“I was here yesterday, but at the other entrance. Is this number seven?”

Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when Stepan Arkadyevitch went in.

“What! you killed him?” cried Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Well done! A she-bear? How are you, Arhip!”

He shook hands with the peasant and sat down on the edge of a chair, without taking off his coat and hat.