On the writing table was a stand of drawers marked with gold lettering, and full of papers of various sorts.

Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a rocking-chair.

"What are you looking at there?" he said to Levin, who was standing at the round table looking through the reviews.

"Oh, yes, there's a very interesting article here," said Sviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand.

" It appears," he went on, with eager interest, "that Friedrich was not, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the partition of Poland.