Never had anything clever said by Levin given him so much pleasure as this remark. Anna’s face lighted up at once, as at once she appreciated the thought. She laughed.

“I laugh,” she said, “as one laughs when one sees a very true portrait. What you said so perfectly hits off French art now, painting and literature too, indeed⁠—Zola, Daudet. But perhaps it is always so, that men form their conceptions from fictitious, conventional types, and then⁠—all the combinaisons made⁠—they are tired of the fictitious figures and begin to invent more natural, true figures.”

“That’s perfectly true,” said Vorknev.

“So you’ve been at the club?” she said to her brother.