The trap driven into the bog

The plan is twenty versts to Gvozdevo, shooting there in the evening and the big marshes tomorrow. Levin says the two little marshes on the way would hardly repay stopping — not quite disinterestedly, since three cannot shoot them — and is overruled twice. At the first they get nothing but a peewit Veslovsky kills; climbing back in, Veslovsky pulls one trigger while uncocking the other and puts a charge into the ground, and Levin, with a bump rising on his head, cannot bring himself to reproach a man who is first so naïvely grieved and then laughs so contagiously. At the second Levin takes his turn, and just as Laska points and he raises his gun, splashing and shouting behind him tell him that Veslovsky has driven the trap into the bog to watch. Neither guest knows anything about harness. Levin works with the coachman in silence, then reproaches himself for coldness and orders lunch. Veslovsky, expiating his sin, takes the box, sings the whole way, and demonstrates the English four-in-hand.

Veslovsky is made harmless and insufferable at once — a man who nearly shoots his host, bogs his horses and wrenches off his splashboard, and is forgiven every time because he is so cheerful about it. Tolstoy notes that Levin cannot object without seeming to be complaining about his own bruise, which is the trap good manners set. The chapter is all small damage, none of it actionable.