"Well, you didn't expect me, eh?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch,
getting out of the sledge, splashed with mud on the bridge of his
nose, on his cheek, and on his eyebrows, but radiant with health
and good spirits. "I've come to see you in the first place," he
said, embracing and kissing him, "to have some stand-shooting
second, and to sell the forest at Ergushovo third."

"Delightful! What a spring we're having! How ever did you get
along in a sledge?"

"In a cart it would have been worse still, Konstantin
Dmitrievitch," answered the driver, who knew him.

"Well, I'm very, very glad to see you," said Levin, with a
genuine smile of childlike delight.

Levin led his friend to the room set apart for visitors, where
Stepan Arkadyevitch's things were carried also--a bag, a gun in
a case, a satchel for cigars. Leaving him there to wash and
change his clothes, Levin went off to the counting house to speak
about the ploughing and clover. Agafea Mihalovna, always very
anxious for the credit of the house, met him in the hall with
inquiries about dinner.

"Do just as you like, only let it be as soon as possible," he
said, and went to the bailiff.

When he came back, Stepan Arkadyevitch, washed and combed, came
out of his room with a beaming smile, and they went upstairs
together.