"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.