The conversation dropped at the jest.

"This cheese is not bad.

Shall I give you some?" said the master of the house.

" Why, have you been going in for gymnastics again?" he asked Levin, pinching his muscle with his left hand.

Levin smiled, bent his arm, and under Stepan Arkadyevitch's fingers the muscles swelled up like a sound cheese, hard as a knob of iron, through the fine cloth of the coat.