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“I think it’s possible. Why not possible?”
“No! do you really think it’s possible? No, tell me all you think! Oh,
but if...if refusal’s in store for me!... Indeed I feel sure...”
“Why should you think that?” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling
at his excitement.
“It seems so to me sometimes. That will be awful for me, and for
her too.”
“Oh, well, anyway there’s nothing awful in it for a girl. Every girl’s
proud of an offer.”
“Yes, every girl, but not she.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled. He so well knew that feeling of Levin’s,
that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two classes: one
class—all the girls in the world except her, and those girls with all sorts
of human weaknesses, and very ordinary girls: the other class—she
alone, having no weaknesses of any sort and higher than all humanity.
“Stay, take some sauce,” he said, holding back Levin’s hand as it
pushed away the sauce.
Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan
Arkadyevitch go on with his dinner.
“No, stop a minute, stop a minute,” he said. “You must understand
that it’s a question of life and death for me. I have never spoken to any
one of this. And there’s no one I could speak of it to, except you. You
know we’re utterly unlike each other, different tastes and views and
everything; but I know you’re fond of me and understand me, and
that’s why I like you awfully. But for God’s sake, be quite straightfor-
ward with me.”
“I tell you what I think,” said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. “But
I’ll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman...” Stepan Arkadyevitch
sighed, remembering his position with his wife, and, after a moment’s
silence, resumed—”She has a gift of foreseeing things. She sees right
through people; but that’s not all; she knows what will come to pass,
especially in the way of marriages. She foretold, for instance, that Prin-
cess Shahovskaya would marry Brenteln. No one would believe it, but
it came to pass. And she’s on your side.”
“How do you mean?”
“It’s not only that she likes you—she says that Kitty is certain to be
your wife.”
At these words Levin’s face suddenly lighted up with a smile, a
smile not far from tears of emotion.
“She says that!” cried Levin. “I always said she was exquisite, your
wife. There, that’s enough, enough said about it,” he said, getting up
from his seat.
“All right, but do sit down.”
But Levin could not sit down. He walked with his firm tread twice
up and down the little cage of a room, blinked his eyelids that his tears
might not fall, and only then sat down to the table.
“You must understand,” said he, “it’s not love. I’ve been in love,
but it’s not that. It’s not my feeling, but a sort of force outside me has
taken possession of me. I went away, you see, because I made up my
mind that it could never be, you understand, as a happiness that does
not come on earth; but I’ve struggled with myself, I see there’s no living
without it. And it must be settled.”
“What did you go away for?”
“Ah, stop a minute! Ah, the thoughts that come crowding on one!
The questions one must ask oneself! Listen. You can’t imagine what
you’ve done for me by what you said. I’m so happy that I’ve become
positively hateful; I’ve forgotten everything. I heard today that my
brother Nikolay...you know, he’s here...I had even forgotten him. It