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"Splendid, splendid!" he said, lighting a fat cigar after the

roast. "I feel as if, coming to you, I had landed on a peaceful

shore after the noise and jolting of a steamer. And so you

maintain that the laborer himself is an element to be studied and

to regulate the choice of methods in agriculture. Of course, I'm

an ignorant outsider; but I should fancy theory and its

application will have its influence on the laborer too."

"Yes, but wait a bit. I'm not talking of political economy, I'm

talking of the science of agriculture. It ought to be like the

natural sciences, and to observe given phenomena and the laborer

in his economic, ethnographical...."

At that instant Agafea Mihalovna came in with jam.

"Oh, Agafea Mihalovna," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, kissing the

tips of his plump fingers, "what salt goose, what herb brandy!...

What do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostya?" he added.

Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare

tree-tops of the forest.