Everyone took part in the conversation except Kitty and Levin.

At first, when they were talking of the influence that one people

has on another, there rose to Levin's mind what he had to say on

the subject. But these ideas, once of such importance in his

eyes, seemed to come into his brain as in a dream, and had now

not the slightest interest for him. It even struck him as

strange that they should be so eager to talk of what was of no

use to anyone. Kitty, too, should, one would have supposed, have

been interested in what they were saying of the rights and

education of women. How often she had mused on the subject,

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thinking of her friend abroad, Varenka, of her painful state of

dependence, how often she had wondered about herself what would

become of her if she did not marry, and how often she had argued

with her sister about it! But it did not interest her at all.

She and Levin had a conversation of their own, yet not a

conversation, but some sort of mysterious communication, which

brought them every moment nearer, and stirred in both a sense of

glad terror before the unknown into which they were entering.

At first Levin, in answer to Kitty's question how he could have

seen her last year in the carriage, told her how he had been

coming home from the mowing along the highroad and had met her.

"It was very, very early in the morning. You were probably only

just awake. Your mother was asleep in the corner. It was an

exquisite morning. I was walking along wondering who it could be

in a four-in-hand? It was a splendid set of four horses with

bells, and in a second you flashed by, and I saw you at the

window--you were sitting like this, holding the strings of your

cap in both hands, and thinking awfully deeply about something,"

he said, smiling. "How I should like to know what you were

thinking about then! Something important?"

"Wasn't I dreadfully untidy?" she wondered, but seeing the smile

of ecstasy these reminiscences called up, she felt that the

impression she had made had been very good. She blushed and

laughed with delight; "Really I don't remember."

"How nicely Turovtsin laughs!" said Levin, admiring his moist

eyes and shaking chest.

"Have you known him long?" asked Kitty.

"Oh, everyone knows him!"

"And I see you think he's a horrid man?"

"Not horrid, but nothing in him."




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