The Closed Confessional — Anna Karenina

When the professor leaves, Sergey asks Levin about farming and district councils with polite interest that feels like condescension. Levin had firmly resolved to tell him about marrying Kitty and to ask his advice. After the morning's debate and Sergey's unconsciously patronizing questions about their undivided mother's estate, he cannot begin. He feels Sergey will not look at the proposal as Levin needs him to. The sentence never forms.

Sergey frowns at Levin's zemstvo resignation and delivers his familiar sermon: Russians see their faults, then comfort themselves with irony and turn reform into ridicule while Germans or English would have worked their way to freedom. Levin answers penitently that he tried with all his soul and is no good at it. Sergey says he does not look at it right. Then Sergey mentions Nikolay, their ruined elder brother, spotted in Moscow. Levin leaps up in horror. Sergey shows Nikolay's note begging to be left in peace after Sergey paid his IOU, and says help is impossible though he wishes he could assist. Levin reads the queer handwriting and feels a struggle between wanting to forget his brother for now and knowing that would be base. He will visit anyway, but not until evening.

First he will do what he came for. He stops at Stiva's office, learns where to find Kitty, and drives toward her with Nikolay's note still in his chest and the sentence about marriage still unspoken to Sergey.