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“I thought you were going towards the piano,” said he, going up to
her. “That’s something I miss in the country—music.”
“No; we only came to fetch you and thank you,” she said, rewarding
him with a smile that was like a gift, “for coming. What do they want to
argue for? No one ever convinces anyone, you know.”
“Yes; that’s true,” said Levin; “it generally happens that one argues
warmly simply because one can’t make out what one’s opponent wants
to prove.”
Levin had often noticed in discussions between the most intelli-
gent people that after enormous efforts, and an enormous expenditure
of logical subtleties and words, the disputants finally arrived at being
aware that what they had so long been struggling to prove to one
another had long ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known
to both, but that they liked different things, and would not define what
they liked for fear of its being attacked. He had often had the experi-
ence of suddenly in a discussion grasping what it was his opponent
liked and at once liking it too, and immediately he found himself agree-
ing, and then all arguments fell away as useless. Sometimes, too, he
had experienced the opposite, expressing at last what he liked himself,
which he was devising arguments to defend, and, chancing to express
it well and genuinely, he had found his opponent at once agreeing and
ceasing to dispute his position. He tried to say this.
she knitted her brow, trying to understand. But directly he began
to illustrate his meaning, she understood at once.
“I know: one must find out what he is arguing for, what is precious
to him, then one can...”
She had completely guessed and expressed his badly expressed
idea. Levin smiled joyfully; he was struck by this transition from the
confused, verbose discussion with Pestsov and his brother to this la-
conic, clear, almost wordless communication of the most complex ideas.
Shtcherbatsky moved away from them, and Kitty, going up to a
card table, sat down, and, taking up the chalk, began drawing diverging
circles over the new green cloth.
They began again on the subject that had been started at din-
ner— the liberty and occupations of women. Levin was of the opinion
of Darya Alexandrovna that a girl who did not marry should find a
woman’s duties in a family. He supported this view by the fact that no
family can get on without women to help; that in every family, poor or
rich, there are and must be nurses, either relations or hired.
“No,” said Kitty, blushing, but looking at him all the more boldly
with her truthful eyes; “a girl may be so circumstanced that she cannot
live in the family without humiliation, while she herself...”
At the hint he understood her.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, yes, yes—you’re right; you’re right!”
And he saw all that Pestsov had been maintaining at dinner of the
liberty of woman, simply from getting a glimpse of the terror of an old
maid’s existence and its humiliation in Kitty’s heart; and loving her, he
felt that terror and humiliation, and at once gave up his arguments.
A silence followed. She was still drawing with the chalk on the
table. Her eyes were shining with a soft light. Under the influence of
her mood he felt in all his being a continually growing tension of hap-
piness.
“Ah! I’ve scribbled all over the table!” she said, and laying down the
chalk, she made a movement as though to get up.
“What! shall I be left alone—without her?” he thought with horror,
and he took the chalk. “Wait a minute,” he said, sitting down to the
table. “I’ve long wanted to ask you one thing.”
He looked straight into her caressing, though frightened eyes.