Though many of the plans with which he had returned to the country had not been carried out, still his most important resolution--that of purity--had been kept by him.

He was free from that shame, which had usually harassed him after a fall; and he could look everyone straight in the face.

In February he had received a letter from Marya Nikolaevna telling him that his brother Nikolay's health was getting worse, but that he would not take advice, and in consequence of this letter Levin went to Moscow to his brother's and succeeded in persuading him to see a doctor and to go to a watering-place abroad.