" "Shall we go on, your excellency, _fine champagne?_" Another group was following a nobleman, who was shouting something in a loud voice; it was one of the three intoxicated gentlemen.

"I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let for a fair rent, for she can never save a profit," he heard a pleasant voice say.

The speaker was a country gentleman with gray whiskers, wearing the regimental uniform of an old general staff-officer.

It was the very landowner Levin had met at Sviazhsky's.

He knew him at once.