of his thoughts, and after a few minutes’ reflection continued to think aloud.
“You know, Márya, today Ilyá Mitrofánych” (this was his overseer) “came back from the Tambóv estate and told me they are already offering eighty thousand rubles for the forest.”
And with an eager face Nikoláy began to speak of the possibility of repurchasing Otrádnoe before long, and added:
“Another ten years of life and I shall leave the children … in an excellent position.”
Countess Márya listened to her husband and understood all that he told her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she had been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following the details of her husband’s plans, thoughts that had no connection with what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew. Her husband’s account of the boy’s agitation while Pierre was speaking struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she thought also of her own children. * She did not compare them with him, but compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with regret that there