Katavasov, biting with a juicy sound into a cucumber.

“Well, what is one to make of it? For mercy’s sake, do explain to me, Sergey Ivanovitch, where are all those volunteers going, whom are they fighting with?” asked the old prince, unmistakably taking up a conversation that had sprung up in Levin’s absence.

“With the Turks,” Sergey Ivanovitch answered, smiling serenely, as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking, and put it with the knife on a stout aspen leaf.

“But who has declared war on the Turks? — Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl?”

“No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their neighbors’