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‘I could see you were uncertain about me,’ Levin said, smiling good-naturedly, ‘but I hastened to start an intelligent conversation, so as to smooth over my sheepskin jacket.’

Sergei Ivanovich, continuing his conversation with the hostess while listening with one ear to his brother, cast a sidelong glance at him. ‘What’s got into him tonight? Such a triumphant look,’ he thought. He did not know that Levin felt he had grown wings. Levin knew that she was listening to his words and liked listening to them. And that was the only thing that mattered to him. Not just in that room, but in all the world, there existed for him only he, who had acquired enormous significance, and she. He felt himself on a height that made his head spin, and somewhere below, far away, were all these kind, nice Karenins, Oblonskys, and the rest of the world.

Quite inconspicuously, without looking at them, but just like that, as if there were nowhere else to seat them, Stepan Arkadyich placed Levin and Kitty next to each other.

‘Well, why don’t you sit here,’ he said to Levin.

The dinner was as good as the dinner ware, of which Stepan Arkadyich was a great fancier. The soup Marie-Louise succeeded splendidly; the pirozhki, which melted in the mouth, were irreproachable. The two servants and Matvei, in white ties, went about their duties with the food and wine quite unobtrusively, quietly and efficiently. On the material side, the dinner was a success; it was no less of a success on the non-material side. The conversation, now general, now particular, never lapsed and became so lively by the end of dinner that the men got up from the table still talking and even Alexei Alexandrovich grew animated.

X

Pestsov liked to argue to the end and was not satisfied with Sergei Ivanovich’s words, the less so as he sensed the incorrectness of his own opinion.

‘I never meant population density alone,’ he said over the soup, addressing Alexei Alexandrovich, ‘but as combined with fundamentals, and not with principles.’

‘It seems to me,’ Alexei Alexandrovich replied unhurriedly and listlessly, ‘that they are one and the same thing. In my opinion, only that nation which is more highly developed can influence another, which ...’

‘But that’s just the question,’ Pestsov interrupted in his bass voice, always in a hurry to speak and always seeming to put his whole soul into what he said. ‘What is this higher development supposed to be? The English, the French, the Germans - which of them stands on a higher level of development? Which will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine frenchified, yet the Germans are not on a lower level!’ he cried. ‘There’s a different law here!’

‘It seems to me that the influence always comes from the side of true education,’ Alexei Alexandrovich said, raising his eyebrows slightly.

‘But what should we take as signs of true education?’ Pestsov said.

‘I suppose that these signs are known,’ said Alexei Alexandrovich.

‘Are they fully known?’ Sergei Ivanovich put in with a subtle smile. ‘It is now recognized that a true education can only be a purely classical one; yet we see bitter disputes on one side and the other, and it cannot be denied that the opposing camp has strong arguments in its favour.’9

‘You are a classicist, Sergei Ivanovich. May I pour you some red?’ said Stepan Arkadyich.

‘I am not expressing my opinion about either sort of education,’ Sergei Ivanovich said with a smile of condescension, as if to a child, and held out his glass. ‘I am merely saying that there are strong arguments on both sides,’ he went on, turning to Alexei Alexandrovich. ‘I received a classical education, but personally I can find no place for myself in this dispute. I see no clear arguments for preferring classical studies over the modern.’

‘The natural sciences have as much pedagogical and developmental influence,’ Pestsov picked up. ‘Take astronomy alone, take botany or zoology, with its system of general laws!’

‘I cannot fully agree with that,’ Alexei Alexandrovich replied. ‘It seems to me that one cannot but acknowledge the fact that