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He had hardly grasped what his brother was saying. Looking

towards the plough land across the river, he made out something

black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the

bailiff on horseback.

"Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didn't

succeed, as you think, and you give in. How can you have so

little self-respect?"

"Self-respect!" said Levin, stung to the quick by his brother's

words; "I don't understand. If they'd told me at college that

other people understood the integral calculus, and I didn't, then

pride would have come in. But in this case one wants first to be

convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort of

business, and especially that all this business is of great

importance."

"What! do you mean to say it's not of importance?" said Sergey

Ivanovitch, stung to the quick too at his brother's considering

anything of no importance that interested him, and still more at

his obviously paying little attention to what he was saying.