634 635
happy, for happiness rests only on oneself. Yegor listened attentively,
and obviously quite took in Levin’s idea, but by way of assent to it he
enunciated, greatly to Levin’s surprise, the observation that when he
had lived with good masters he had always been satisfied with his
masters, and now was perfectly satisfied with his employer, though he
was a Frenchman.
“Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!” thought Levin.
“Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married, did you love
your wife?”
“Ay! and why not?” responded Yegor.
And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state and intend-
ing to express all his most heartfelt emotions.
“My life, too, has been a wonderful one. From a child up...” he was
beginning with flashing eyes, apparently catching Levin’s enthusiasm,
just as people catch yawning.
But at that moment a ring was heard. Yegor departed, and Levin
was left alone. He had eaten scarcely anything at dinner, had refused
tea and supper at Sviazhsky’s, but he was incapable of thinking of
supper. He had not slept the previous night, but was incapable of
thinking of sleep either. His room was cold, but he was oppressed by
heat. He opened both the movable panes in his window and sat down
to the table opposite the open panes. Over the snow-covered roofs
could be seen a decorated cross with chains, and above it the rising
triangle of Charles’s Wain with the yellowish light of Capella. He
gazed at the cross, then at the stars, drank in the fresh freezing air that
flowed evenly into the room, and followed as though in a dream the
images and memories that rose in his imagination. At four o’clock he
heard steps in the passage and peeped out at the door. It was the
gambler Myaskin, whom he knew, coming from the club. He walked
gloomily, frowning and coughing. “Poor, unlucky fellow!” thought Levin,
and tears came into his eyes from love and pity for this man. He would
have talked with him, and tried to comfort him, but remembering that
he had nothing but his shirt on, he changed his mind and sat down
again at the open pane to bathe in the cold air and gaze at the exquis-
ite lines of the cross, silent, but full of meaning for him, and the mount-
ing lurid yellow star. At seven o’clock there was a noise of people
polishing the floors, and bells ringing in some servants’ department,
and Levin felt that he was beginning to get frozen. He closed the
pane, washed, dressed, and went out into the street.