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By Root 1356 0

yourself the temptation of the devil who is drawing you into unbelief?’ he said in mild reproach. ‘If you love your child, then, being a good father, you will not desire only wealth, luxury and honour for him; you will desire his salvation, his spiritual enlightenment with the light of Truth. Is it not so? What answer will you give when an innocent child asks you: “Papa! Who created everything that delights me in this world - the earth, the waters, the sun, the flowers, the grass?” Will you really say to him, “I don’t know”? You cannot not know, since the Lord God in His great mercy has revealed it to you. Or else your little one will ask you: “What awaits me in the life beyond the grave?” What will you tell him, if you don’t know anything? How will you answer him? Will you leave him to the temptation of the world and the devil? That’s not good!’ he said and stopped, inclining his head to one side and looking at Levin with meek, kindly eyes.

Levin made no reply, now not because he did not want to get into an argument with a priest, but because no one had ever asked him such questions; and before his little ones asked him such questions, there was still time to think how to answer.

‘You are entering upon a time of life,’ the priest went on, ‘when one must choose a path and keep to it. Pray to God that in His goodness He may help you and have mercy on you,’ he concluded. ‘May our Lord and God Jesus Christ, through the grace and bounties of His love for mankind, forgive you, child ...’ and, having finished the prayer of absolution, the priest blessed and dismissed him.

On returning home that day, Levin experienced the joyful feeling of having ended his awkward situation and ended it in such a way that he had not needed to lie. Apart from that, he was left with the vague recollection that what this kindly and nice old man had said was not at all as stupid as it had seemed to him at first, and that there was something in it that needed to be grasped.

‘Not now, of course,’ Levin thought, ‘but some time later on.’ Levin felt more than ever that there was something unclear and impure in his soul, and that with regard to religion he was in the same position that he so clearly saw and disliked in others and for which he reproached his friend Sviyazhsky.

Levin was especially happy that evening, which he spent with his fiancée at Dolly‘s, and, explaining his excited state to Stepan Arkadyich, said that he was as happy as a dog that has been taught to jump through a hoop and, having finally understood and done what was demanded of it, squeals, wags its tail, and leaps in rapture on to the tables and windowsills.

II

On the day of the wedding Levin, according to custom (the princess and Darya Alexandrovna strictly insisted on fulfilling all customs), did not see his fiancée and dined in his hotel with a chance gathering of three bachelors: Sergei Ivanovich, Katavasov, his university friend, now a professor of natural science, whom Levin had met in the street and dragged home with him, and Chirikov, one of his groomsmen, a Moscow justice of the peace, Levin’s bear-hunting comrade. The dinner was very merry. Sergei Ivanovich was in the best of spirits and enjoyed Katavasov’s originality. Katavasov, feeling that his originality was appreciated and understood, flaunted it. Chirikov gaily and good-naturedly supported all the conversations.

‘See, now,’ Katavasov said, drawing out his words, from a habit acquired at the lectern, ‘what an able fellow our friend Konstantin Dmitrich used to be. I’m speaking of him as an absent man because he is no more. He loved science then, on leaving the university, and had human interests; but now half of his abilities are aimed at deceiving himself and the other half at justifying this deceit.’

‘A more resolute enemy of marriage than you I’ve never yet seen,’ said Sergei Ivanovich.

‘No, not an enemy. I’m a friend of the division of labour. People who can’t do anything should make people, and the rest should contribute to their enlightenment and happiness. That’s how I understand it. The mixing