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This was more than he could stand. How could a woman of any

intelligence, of any delicacy, put her sister in such a

humiliating position! He wrote ten notes, and tore them all up,

and sent the saddle without any reply. To write that he would go

was impossible, because he could not go; to write that he could

not come because something prevented him, or that he would be

away, that was still worse. He sent the saddle without an answer,

and with a sense of having done something shameful; he handed

over all the now revolting business of the estate to the bailiff,

and set off next day to a remote district to see his friend

Sviazhsky, who had splendid marshes for grouse in his

neighborhood, and had lately written to ask him to keep a

long-standing promise to stay with him. The grouse-marsh, in the

Surovsky district, had long tempted Levin, but he had continually

put off this visit on account of his work on the estate.