Nineteen birds, and nothing to eat

The sportsman's saying holds: he comes back at ten after thirty versts with nineteen birds and a duck at his girdle, and counts them twice, pleased by Oblonsky's envy. Kitty's note is waiting — she is quite well, has acquired a bodyguard in Mary Vlasyevna the midwife, and tells him not to hurry and to stay another day if the sport is good. Two small vexations follow: the chestnut side-horse is off its feed, having been driven hard for ten versts, and of the provisions Kitty packed for a week there is nothing left at all — no pies, no chicken, and the beef eaten and the bone given to the dogs. Levin, so hungry he had smelt the pies on the road, says crossly that something might have been left for him, orders the birds drawn and stuffed with nettles, asks for milk, and afterwards laughs at himself. They shoot again in the evening and drive home merrily, Veslovsky repeating the peasant's advice about striving for a wife of one's own. Levin finds he likes him.

Tolstoy lets the birds be counted twice and then describes them twisted, dried and smeared with blood, which is the standing correction to every triumph in the novel. The eaten provisions produce more feeling than anything in the hayloft argument, and Levin nearly cries over pies. Away from home the jealousy is simply absent, which is the chapter's quiet diagnosis.