He was thirty-two, and while his former comrades were already colonels, aides-de-camp, Bank and Railway Directors, or Heads of Government Boards like Oblonsky, he (he knew very well what others must think of him) was merely a country squire, spending his time breeding cows, shooting snipe, and erecting buildings – that is to say, a fellow without talent, who had come to no good and was only doing what in the opinion of Society good-for-nothing people always do.
Él, en cambio, sabía bien cómo debían de juzgarle los demás: un propietario rural, un ganadero, un hombre sin capacidad, que no hacía, a ojos de las gentes, sino lo que hacen los que no sirven para nada: ocuparse del ganado, de cazar, de vigilar sus campos y sus dependencias.