"Why, who prevents you?" said Levin, smiling.
"No, you're a lucky man! You've got everything you like. You
like horses--and you have them; dogs--you have them; shooting--
you have it; farming--you have it."
"Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don't fret for
what I haven't," said Levin, thinking of Kitty.
Stepan Arkadyevitch comprehended, looked at him, but said
nothing.
Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing, with his
never-failing tact, that he dreaded conversation about the
Shtcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin
was longing to find out what was tormenting him so, yet he had
not the courage to begin.
"Come, tell me how things are going with you," said Levin,
bethinking himself that it was not nice of him to think only of
himself.
Stepan Arkadyevitch's eyes sparkled merrily.
"You don't admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when
one has had one's rations of bread--to your mind it's a crime;
but I don't count life as life without love," he said, taking
Levin's question his own way. "What am I to do? I'm made that
way. And really, one does so little harm to anyone, and gives
oneself so much pleasure..."
"What! is there something new, then?" queried Levin.
"Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of
Ossian's women.... Women, such as one sees in dreams.... Well,
these women are sometimes to be met in reality...and these women
are terrible. Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that
however much you study it, it's always perfectly new."
"Well, then, it would be better not to study it."
"No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the
search for truth, not in the finding it."
Levin listened in silence, and in spite of all the efforts he
made, he could not in the least enter into the feelings of his
friend and understand his sentiments and the charm of studying
such women.