‘Come, now! What nonsense! That’s her manner ... Well, my good man, serve the soup! ... That’s her manner, the grande dame,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘I’ll come, too, only I have to go to a choir rehearsal at Countess Banin’s first. Well, what are you if not wild? How else explain the way you suddenly disappeared from Moscow? The Shcherbatskys kept asking me about you, as if I should know. I know only one thing: you always do what nobody else does.’
‘Yes,’ Levin said slowly and with agitation. ‘You’re right, I am wild. Only my wildness isn’t in my leaving, but in my coming now. I’ve come now...’
‘Oh, what a lucky man you are!’ Stepan Arkadyich picked up, looking into Levin’s eyes.
‘Why?’
‘Bold steeds I can tell by their something-or-other thighs, and young men in love by the look in their eyes,’19 declaimed Stepan Arkadyich. ‘You’ve got everything before you.’
‘And with you it’s already behind?’
‘No, not behind, but you have the future and I the present - a bit of this, a bit of that.’
‘And?’
‘Not so good. Well, but I don’t want to talk about myself, and besides it’s impossible to explain everything,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘So what have you come to Moscow for? ... Hey, clear away!’ he called to the Tartar.
‘Can’t you guess?’ replied Levin, gazing steadily at Stepan Arkadyich, his eyes lit from within.
‘I can, but I can’t be the first to speak of it. By that alone you can see whether I’ve guessed right or not,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, glancing at Levin with a subtle smile.
‘Well, what do you say?’ Levin said in a trembling voice and feeling all the muscles in his face trembling. ‘How do you look at it?’
Stepan Arkadyich slowly drank his glass of Chablis, not taking his eyes off Levin.
‘I?’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘I’d like nothing better than that-nothing. It’s the best thing that could happen.’
‘But you’re not mistaken? You do know what we’re talking about?’ Levin said, fastening his eyes on his interlocutor. ‘You think it’s possible?’
‘I think it’s possible. Why should it be impossible?’
‘No, you really think it’s possible? No, tell me all you think! Well, and what if ... what if I should be refused? ... And I’m even certain ...’
‘Why do you think so?’ Stepan Arkadyich said, smiling at his friend’s excitement.
‘It sometimes seems so to me. But that would be terrible both for me and for her.’
‘Well, in any case, for a girl there’s nothing terrible in it. Every girl is proud of being proposed to.’
‘Yes, every girl, but not she.’
Stepan Arkadyich smiled. He knew so well this feeling of Levin‘s, knew that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two sorts: one sort was all the girls in the world except her, and these girls had all human weaknesses and were very ordinary girls; the other sort was her alone, with no weaknesses and higher than everything human.
‘Wait, have some sauce,’ he said, stopping Levin’s hand, which was pushing the sauce away.
Levin obediently took some sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyich eat.
‘No, wait, wait!’ he said. ‘Understand that for me it’s a question of life and death. I’ve never talked about it with anyone. And I can’t talk about it with anyone but you. Look, here we are, strangers in everything: different tastes, views, everything; but I know that you love me and understand me, and for that I love you terribly. So, for God’s sake, be completely open.’
‘I’m telling you what I think,’ Stepan Arkadyich said, smiling. ‘But I’ll tell you more: my wife is a most remarkable woman...’ Stepan Arkadyich sighed, remembering his relations with his wife, and after a moment’s silence went on: ‘She has a gift of foresight. She can see through people; but, more than that, she knows what’s going to happen, especially along marital lines. She predicted, for instance, that Shakhov skoy would marry Brenteln. No one wanted to believe it, but it turned out to be so. And she’s on your side.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning not just that she loves you - she says Kitty will certainly be your wife.’
At these words Levin’s face suddenly lit up with a smile, of the sort that is close to tears of tenderness.
‘She says that!’ Levin cried. ‘I always said she was a delight, your wife. Well, enough, enough talking about it,’ he said, getting up from his seat.
‘All right, only do sit down, the soup’s coming.’
But Levin could not sit down. He paced the little cell of a room twice with his firm strides, blinked his eyes to keep the tears from showing, and only then sat down at the table again.
‘Understand,’ he said, ‘that it isn’t love. I’ve been in love, but this is not the same. This is not my feeling, but some external force taking possession of me. I left because I decided it could not be, you understand, like a happiness that doesn’t exist on earth; but I have struggled with myself and I see that without it there is no life. And I must resolve ...’
‘Then why did you go away?’
‘Ah, wait! Ah, so many thoughts! I have so much to ask! Listen. You can’t imagine what you’ve done for me by what you’ve said. I’m so happy that I’ve even become mean; I’ve forgotten everything ... I found out today that my brother Nikolai ... you know, he’s here ... I forgot about him, too. It seems to me that he’s happy, too. It’s like madness. But there’s one terrible thing ... You’re married, you know this feeling ... The terrible thing is that we older men, who already have a past ... not of love, but of sins ... suddenly become close with a pure, innocent being; it’s disgusting, and so you can’t help feeling yourself unworthy.’
‘Well, you don’t have so many sins.’
‘Ah, even so,’ said Levin, ‘even so, “with disgust reading over my life, I tremble and curse, and bitterly complain ...”20 Yes.’
‘No help for it, that’s how the world is made,’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
‘There’s one consolation, as in that prayer I’ve always loved, that I may be forgiven not according to my deserts, but out of mercy. That’s also the only way she can forgive me.’
XI
Levin finished his glass, and they were silent for a while.
‘There’s one more thing I must tell you. Do you know Vronsky?’ Stepan Arkadyich asked Levin.
‘No, I don’t. Why do you ask?’
‘Bring us another,’ Stepan Arkadyich addressed the Tartar, who was filling their glasses and fussing around them precisely when he was not needed.
‘Why should I know Vronsky?’
‘You should know Vronsky because he’s one of your rivals.’
‘What is this Vronsky?’ said Levin, and his face, from that expression of childlike rapture which Oblonsky had just been admiring, suddenly turned spiteful and unpleasant.
‘Vronsky is one of the sons of Count Kirill Ivanovich Vronsky and one of the finest examples of the gilded youth of Petersburg. I got to know him in Tver, when I was in government service there and he came for the conscription. Terribly rich, handsome, big connections, an imperial aide-de-camp, and with all that - a very sweet, nice fellow. And more than just a nice fellow. As I’ve come to know him here, he’s both cultivated and very intelligent. He’s a man who will go far.’
Levin frowned and kept silent.
‘Well, sir, he appeared here soon after you left and, as I understand, is head over heels in love with Kitty, and, you understand, her mother ...’
‘Excuse me, but I understand nothing,’ said Levin, scowling gloomily. And he at once remembered his brother Nikolai and how mean he was to have forgotten about him.