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In the evening at tea, two landowners who had come about some

business connected with a wardship were of the party, and the

interesting conversation Levin had been looking forward to sprang

up.

Levin was sitting beside his hostess at the tea table, and was

obliged to keep up a conversation with her and her sister, who

was sitting opposite him. Madame Sviazhskaya was a round-faced,

fair-haired, rather short woman, all smiles and dimples. Levin

tried through her to get a solution of the weighty enigma her

husband presented to his mind; but he had not complete freedom of

ideas, because he was in an agony of embarrassment. This agony of

embarrassment was due to the fact that the sister-in-law was

sitting opposite to him, in a dress, specially put on, as he

fancied, for his benefit, cut particularly open, in the shape of

a trapeze, on her white bosom. This quadrangular opening, in

spite of the bosom's being very white, or just because it was

very white, deprived Levin of the full use of his faculties.