Stepan Arkadyich smiled merrily.
‘Yes, it’s a sign that he does not need to do rough labour. His mind does the work …’
‘Maybe. But I still find it peculiar, just as I find it peculiar now that whereas we country-people try and finish our meal quickly so we can get on with our work, you and I are trying to spin it out as long as possible, and that’s why we are eating oysters …’
‘Well, of course,’ broke in Stepan Arkadyich. ‘But that is the aim of education: to turn everything into a pleasure.’
‘Well, if that is the aim, I would rather be peculiar.’
‘You are peculiar already. You Levins are all peculiar.’* Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolay and began to feel ashamed and troubled, and he frowned; but Oblonsky started discussing a topic which immediately distracted him.
‘So, are you going over this evening to visit the family, the Shcherbatskys, I mean?’ he asked, pushing away the empty rough shells and drawing the cheese towards him with a significant twinkle in his eyes.
‘Yes, I will definitely be going,’ answered Levin. ‘Although it didn’t seem to me that the Princess was particularly keen to invite me.’
‘Oh no! What nonsense! That’s her manner … Now come on, my good fellow, let’s have the soup! That’s her manner, she is a grande dame,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘I’m also coming, but I have choir practice at Countess Banina’s. But how can you not be seen as peculiar? What else was the reason for your sudden disappearance from Moscow? The Shcherbatskys kept asking me about you as if I ought to know. But I only know one thing: you always do what no one else does.’
‘Yes,’ said Levin slowly and nervously. ‘You are right, I am peculiar. But it was not my departure which was peculiar, but the fact that I have come now. I have come now …’
‘You are a lucky man!’ Stepan Arkadyich broke in, looking Levin in the eye.
‘Why?’
‘Spirited steeds I recognize by their something-or-other brands, and love-sick youths by their eyes,’* declaimed Stepan Arkadyich. ‘You have got everything ahead of you.’
‘Surely you don’t have everything behind you?’
‘No, not exactly behind me, but you have a future, while I have a present, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Not good. Well, actually I don’t want to talk about myself, and it would be impossible to explain everything anyway,’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘So why have you really come to Moscow? … Hey, take this away!’ he shouted to the Tatar.
‘Can you guess?’ answered Levin without taking his intensely shining eyes off Stepan Arkadyich.
‘I can guess, but I can’t be the one to broach the subject. Which should already be enough for you to see whether I have guessed correctly or not,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, looking at Levin with a subtle smile.
‘Well, what can you tell me?’ said Levin in a trembling voice, feeling all the muscles on his face also tremble. ‘What do you think about it?’
Stepan Arkadyich drank his glass of Chablis slowly, not taking his eyes off Levin.
‘What do I think?’ said Stepan Arkadyich. ‘There is nothing I would like more than this, nothing. It would be the best thing that could possibly happen.’
‘You’re sure you are not mistaken? You do know what we are talking about?’ said Levin, his eyes glued to his friend. ‘Do you think it’s possible?’
‘I do think it’s possible. Why shouldn’t it be?’
‘No, do you really think it’s possible? Come on, tell me everything you think! And what, what if I am refused? … I am even sure …’
‘Why should you think that?’ said Stepan Arkadyich, smiling at his agitation.
‘That is how it sometimes seems to me. After all, it would be awful for her and for me.’
‘Well, there is nothing awful about it for a girl at any rate. Any girl would be proud to receive a proposal.’
‘Yes, any girl, but not her.’
Stepan Arkadyich smiled. He knew this feeling of Levin’s so well; he knew that for him all the girls in the world were divided into two sorts: one sort was all the girls in the world except for her, and they had every conceivable human frailty, and were very ordinary girls, while the other sort consisted of her alone, devoid of all weaknesses and superior to all humanity.
‘Wait, have some sauce,’ he said, stopping Levin’s hand as he tried to push away the sauce.
Levin meekly poured himself some sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyich eat.
‘No, you must wait—wait,’ he said. ‘You have to understand that this is a matter of life and death for me. I have never talked to anyone about this. And there is no one I can talk to about this except you. We are poles apart in everything, you and I—different tastes, different views, everything; but I know that you care for me and understand me, and you mean the world to me for that. But for God’s sake, please be completely frank with me.’
‘I am telling you what I think,’ said Stepan Arkadyich, smiling. ‘But I will tell you something else: my wife is an extraordinary woman, you know …’ Stepan Arkadyich sighed as he remembered his relations with his wife, and after a moment’s pause he continued: ‘she has the gift of prophecy. She can see right through people, but not just that—she knows what is going to happen, especially where marriages are concerned. She predicted that Shakhovskaya would marry Brenteln, for example. No one was prepared to believe it, but that is what happened. And she is on your side.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that not only is she very fond of you, but she says that Kitty will definitely be your wife.’
On hearing those words Levin’s face suddenly lit up with a smile, the sort of smile when one is nearly moved to tears.
‘She actually says that!’ exclaimed Levin. ‘I always said she was wonderful, your wife. Well, anyway, enough of that, let’s not talk about it any more,’ he said, getting up from the table.
‘All right, but do sit down, the soup has arrived.’
But Levin could not sit down. He walked round the cage-like room twice with his firm step, blinking so that his tears should not be seen, and only then did he sit down again at the table.
‘You must understand,’ he said, ‘this is not love. I’ve been in love, but this is different. This is not my feeling, but some kind of external force which has taken possession of me. I had to leave, you see, because I decided that it could never be, like the sort of happiness that doesn’t exist on earth; but I battled with myself, and can see that there is no life without it. And I have to resolve …’
‘Then why did you go away?’
‘Ah, wait! Ah, so many thoughts! So much I have to ask! Listen. After all, you can’t imagine what you have done for me by saying what you did. I am so happy that I have even become despicable; I have forgotten everything … I learned today that my brother Nikolay … he’s here, you know … and I just forgot all about him. I feel he is happy too. It’s a sort of madness. But there is one awful thing … You got married, so you will know this feeling … What is awful is when we—older men, who already have a past history … of sinning, not of love … suddenly become close to a pure, innocent creature; it’s loathsome, and for that reason one can’t help but feel unworthy.’
‘Well, you don’t have many sins.’
‘Oh, all the same,’ said Levin, ‘all the same, “as I with loathing behold my life, I tremble and curse, and bitterly lament …”* Yes.’
‘Nothing to be done about it, that is how the world is,’ said Stepan Arkadyich.
‘The only consolation, like in that prayer I have always loved, is to be forgiven not according to my deserts, but according to God’s mercy.* That is the only way she can forgive …’