第16章

he said. `You can't conceive how queer it all seems to a countryman like me, as queer as that gentleman's nails I saw at your office....'

`Yes, I saw how much interested you were in poor Grinevich's nails,'

said Stepan Arkadyevich, laughing.

`It's too much for me,' responded Levin. `Do try, now, to put yourself in my place - take the point of view of a countryman. We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails; sometimes we tuck up our sleeves.

And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as possible, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands.'

Stepan Arkadyevich 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 countryfolks try to satiate ourselves as soon as we can, so as to be ready for work, while here are we trying to delay satiety as long as possible, and with that object are eating oysters....'

`Why, of course,' objected Stepan Arkadyevich. `But that's just the aim of culture - to make everything a source of enjoyment.'

`Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage.'

`You are a savage, as it is. All you Levins are savages.'

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolai, and felt ashamed and pained, 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 Shcherbatsky's, I mean?' he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese toward 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 Arkadyevich. `I'm coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonin'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 Shcherbatskys were continually 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 Arkadyevich, looking into Levin's eyes.

`Why?'

`I can tell the gallant steeds,' by some... I don't know what...

``pace's; I can tell youths ``by their faces,''' declaimed Stepan Arkadyevich.

`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 only fair to middling.'

`How so?'

`Oh, things aren't right. But I don't want to talk of myself, besides I can't explain it all,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! clear the table!' he called to the Tatar.

`Are you trying to surmise?' responded Levin, his eyes, gleaming in their depth, fixed on Stepan Arkadyevich.

`I am, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see by that whether I surmise right or wrong,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, 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 it?

Stepan Arkadyevich slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never taking his eyes off Levin.

`I?' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `There's nothing I desire so much as that - nothing! It would be the best thing that could happen.'

`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?'

`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...'

`What makes you think so?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, 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 a proposal.'

`Yes, every girl, but not she.'

Stepan Arkadyevich 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 failings, and very ordinary girls: the other class -she alone, having no failings of any sort and higher than all humanity.

`Stay, take some sauce,' he said, holding back Levin's hand, who was pushing the sauce away.

Levin obediently helped himself to sauce, but would not let Stepan Arkadyevich 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 anyone of this. And there's no one to whom I could speak of it, except yourself.

You know we're utterly unlike each other, different in 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 Arkadyevich, smiling. `But I'll say more: my wife is a wonderful woman...' Stepan Arkadyevich sighed, recalling his relations 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 Shahovskaia 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 touching tears.