`It's too much for me,' responded Levin. `Do try, now, to put yourself in my place - take the point of view of a countryman. We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails; sometimes we tuck up our sleeves. And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as possible, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so that they can do nothing with their hands.'

Stepan Arkadyevich smiled gaily.

`Oh, yes, that's just a sign that he has no need to do coarse work. His work is with the mind....'

`Maybe. But still it's queer to me, just as at this moment it seems queer to me that we countryfolks try to satiate ourselves as soon as we can, so as to be ready for work, while here are we trying to delay satiety as long as possible, and with that object are eating oysters....'

`Why, of course,' objected Stepan Arkadyevich. `But that's just the aim of culture - to make everything a source of enjoyment.'

`Well, if that's its aim, I'd rather be a savage.'

`You are a savage, as it is. All you Levins are savages.'

Levin sighed. He remembered his brother Nikolai, and felt ashamed and pained, and he scowled; but Oblonsky began speaking of a subject which at once drew his attention.

`Oh, I say, are you going tonight to our people - the Shcherbatsky's, I mean?' he said, his eyes sparkling significantly as he pushed away the empty rough shells, and drew the cheese toward him.

`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 Arkadyevich. `I'm coming, too, but I have to go to the Countess Bonin'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 Shcherbatskys 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 Arkadyevich, looking into Levin's eyes.

`Why?'

`I can tell the gallant steeds,' by some... I don't know what... ``pace's; I can tell youths ``by their faces,''' declaimed Stepan Arkadyevich. `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 only fair to middling.'

`How so?'

`Oh, things aren't right. But I don't want to talk of myself, besides I can't explain it all,' said Stepan Arkadyevich. `Well, why have you come to Moscow, then?... Hi! clear the table!' he called to the Tatar.

`Are you trying to surmise?' responded Levin, his eyes, gleaming in their depth, fixed on Stepan Arkadyevich.