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do nothing with their hands.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled gaily.
“Oh, yes, that’s just a sign that he has no need to do coarse work.
His work is with the mind...”
“Maybe. But still it’s queer to me, just as at this moment it seems
queer to me that we country folks try to get our meals over as soon as
we can, so as to be ready for our work, while here are we trying to drag
out our meal as long as possible, and with that object eating oysters...”
“Why, of course,” objected Stepan Arkadyevitch. “But that’s just
the aim of civilization—to make everything a source of enjoyment.”
“Well, if that’s its aim, I’d rather be a savage.”
“And so you are a savage. All you Levins are savages.”
Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolay, and felt
ashamed and sore, and he scowled; but Oblonsky began speaking of a
subject which at once drew his attention.
“Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people, the Shtcherbatskys’,
I mean?” he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away
the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese towards him.
“Yes, I shall certainly go,” replied Levin; “though I fancied the
princess was not very warm in her invitation.”
“What nonsense! That’s her manner.... Come, boy, the soup!....
That’s her manner—grande dame,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “I’m
coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonina’s rehearsal. Come,
isn’t it true that you’re a savage? How do you explain the sudden way
in which you vanished from Moscow? The Shtcherbatskys were con-
tinually asking me about you, as though I ought to know. The only
thing I know is that you always do what no one else does.”
“Yes,” said Levin, slowly and with emotion, “you’re right. I am a
savage. Only, my savageness is not in having gone away, but in coming
now. Now I have come...”
“Oh, what a lucky fellow you are!” broke in Stepan Arkadyevitch,
looking into Levin’s eyes.
“Why?”
“I know a gallant steed by tokens sure, And by his eyes I know a
youth in love,” declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Everything is before
you.”
“Why, is it over for you already?”
“No; not over exactly, but the future is yours, and the present is
mine, and the present—well, it’s not all that it might be.”
“How so?”
“Oh, things go wrong. But I don’t want to talk of myself, and
besides I can’t explain it all,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch. “Well, why
have you come to Moscow, then?.... Hi! take away!” he called to the
Tatar.
“You guess?” responded Levin, his eyes like deep wells of light
fixed on Stepan Arkadyevitch.
“I guess, but I can’t be the first to talk about it. You can see by that
whether I guess right or wrong,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, gazing at
Levin with a subtle smile.
“Well, and what have you to say to me?” said Levin in a quivering
voice, feeling that all the muscles of his face were quivering too. “How
do you look at the question?”
Stepan Arkadyevitch slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never
taking his eyes off Levin.
“I?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, “there’s nothing I desire so much as
that—nothing! It would be the best thing that could be.”
“But you’re not making a mistake? You know what we’re speaking
of?” said Levin, piercing him with his eyes. “You think it’s possible?”