"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 Arkadyevitch. "I'm
coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonina'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 Shtcherbatskys
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 Arkadyevitch,
looking into Levin's eyes.
"Why?"
"I know a gallant steed by tokens sure,
And by his eyes I know a youth in love," declaimed Stepan Arkadyevitch. "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 not all that it might be."
"How so?"
"Oh, things go wrong. But I don't want to talk of myself, and
besides I can't explain it all," said Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?.... Hi! take away!" he
called to the Tatar.
"You guess?" responded Levin, his eyes like deep wells of light
fixed on Stepan Arkadyevitch.
"I guess, but I can't be the first to talk about it. You can see
by that whether I guess right or wrong," said Stepan
Arkadyevitch, 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 the question?"
Stepan Arkadyevitch slowly emptied his glass of Chablis, never
taking his eyes off Levin.
"I?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, "there's nothing I desire so much
as that--nothing! It would be the best thing that could be."
"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 possible?"
"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..."