Anna Karenina - Part 2

"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.