"I can't defend his opinions," Darya Alexandrovna said, firing up; "but I can say that he's a highly cultivated man, and if he were here he would know very well how to answer you, though I am not capable of doing so.

" "I like him extremely, and we are great friends," Sviazhsky said, smiling good-naturedly.

" _Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toque;_ he maintains, for instance, that district councils and arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take part in anything.

" "It's our Russian apathy," said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; "we've no sense of the duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we refuse to recognize these duties.