Anna Karenina

Kitty is glad to be alone with Levin—she noticed the "shade of mortification" on his face when he arrived at the terrace and got no answer about what they were discussing. Walking together, she clings to his arm. He feels "a new and delicious bliss, quite pure from all alloy of sense" being near her during her pregnancy. Her voice and eyes have changed: "that softness and gravity which is found in people continually concentrated on some cherished pursuit." Kitty tells him they were discussing "how men make offers" and Sergey Ivanovitch and Varenka. "I'm very anxious for it," she says, peeking at his face. Levin explains that Sergey "lives a spiritual life only. He's too pure, too exalted a nature." When Kitty asks if marriage would lower him, Levin says: "He's so used to a spiritual life that he can't reconcile himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all fact." Kitty understands him from hints—she knows "he would never have cared for me. She is altogether spiritual." Levin mentions his late brother Nikolay: "I sometimes blame myself for not; it ends in one's forgetting." The conversation shifts. Levin says he envies Sergey "for being better than I. He does not live for himself. His whole life is subordinated to his duty." Kitty smiles ironically, knowing "her husband, in exalting his brother and abasing himself, was not quite sincere." "I am happy, but dissatisfied with myself," Levin admits. Kitty asks how he can be dissatisfied when happy. He explains that before marriage he put energies into work, but now "I do it in these days like a task that is set me." Everything pales compared to his love for her. Kitty asks: "Would you like to change this minute with Sergey Ivanovitch?" "Of course not," Levin says. Then: "So you think he'll make her an offer today?" Kitty stoops and picks a wild camomile. "Come, count: he does propose, he doesn't," she says. They pluck petals together: "He does, he doesn't." Kitty stops him when he picks two at once. The wagonette catches up, but they walk on together.