"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?"

 

"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 straightforward 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 Princess 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.