‘Will there really be a trousseau and all that?’ Levin thought with horror. ‘And yet, can the trousseau, and the blessing, and all that - can it spoil my happiness? Nothing can spoil it!’ He glanced at Kitty and noticed that she was not the least bit offended at the thought of a trousseau. ‘So it’s necessary,’ he thought.
‘I really don’t know anything, I only said what I wish,’ he said, apologizing.
‘Then we’ll decide. We can give the blessing and make the announcement now. That’s so.’
The princess went up to her husband, kissed him and was about to leave; but he held her back, embraced her and tenderly, like a young lover, smiling, kissed her several times. The old folk evidently got confused for a moment and could not quite tell whether it was they who were in love again, or only their daughter. When the prince and princess left, Levin went up to his fiancée and took her hand. He had now gained control of himself and could speak, and there was much that he needed to tell her. But he said not at all what he meant to.
‘How I knew it would be so! I never hoped, but in my soul I was always sure,’ he said. ‘I believe it was predestined.’
‘And I.’ she said. ‘Even when ...’ she stopped and then went on, looking at him resolutely with her truthful eyes, ‘even when I pushed my happiness away from me. I always loved you alone, but I was infatuated. I must tell ... Can you forget it?’
‘Maybe it was for the better. You must forgive me many things. I must tell you ...’
This was one of the things he had resolved to tell her. He had resolved to tell her two things in the very first days - one, that he was not as pure as she was, and the other, that he was an unbeliever. It was painful, but he considered that he ought to tell her both the one and the other.
‘No, not now, later!’ he said.
‘Very well, later, but you absolutely must tell me. I’m not afraid of anything. I must know everything. It’s settled now.’
He finished the phrase:
‘Settled that you’ll take me however I used to be, that you won’t renounce me? Yes?’
‘Yes, yes.’
Their conversation was interrupted by Mile Linon, who, smiling falsely but tenderly, came to congratulate her favourite charge. Before she left, the servants came with their congratulations. Then relatives arrived, and that blissful tumult began from which Levin did not escape till the day after his wedding. Levin felt constantly awkward, bored, but the tension of happiness went on, ever increasing. He kept feeling that much that he did not know was demanded of him, and he did everything he was told and it all made him happy. He thought that his engagement would have nothing in common with others, that the ordinary conditions of engagement would spoil his particular happiness; but it ended with him doing the same things as others, and his happiness was only increased by it and became more and more special, the like of which had never been known and never would be.
‘Now we’ll have some sweets,’ Mlle Linon would say, and Levin would go to buy sweets.
‘Well, I’m very glad,’ said Sviyazhsky. ‘I advise you to buy flowers at Fomin’s.’
‘Must I?’ And he went to Fomin’s.
His brother told him that he would have to borrow money, because there would be many expenses, presents ...
‘Must there be presents?’ And he galloped off to Fulde’s.15
At the confectioner‘s, at Fomin’s and at Fulde’s he saw that they expected him, were glad to see him, and celebrated his happiness just as did everyone he had to deal with during those days. The extraordinary thing was not only that everyone loved him, but that all formerly unsympathetic, cold, indifferent people admired him and obeyed him in all things, treated his feeling with tenderness and delicacy, and shared his conviction that he was the happiest man in the world because his fiancée was the height of perfection. And Kitty felt the same. When Countess Nordston allowed herself to hint that she had wished for something better, Kitty flew into such a passion and proved so persuasively that nothing in the world could be better than Levin, that Countess Nordston had to admit it and never afterwards met Levin in Kitty’s presence without a smile of admiration.
The explanation he had promised was the one painful event during that time. He discussed it with the old prince and, having obtained his permission, gave Kitty his diary, in which he had written down what tormented him. He had written this diary with his future fiancée in mind. Two things tormented him: his impurity and his unbelief. His confession of unbelief went unnoticed. She was religious, had never doubted the truths of religion, but his external unbelief did not affect her in the least. She knew his whole soul through love, and in his soul she saw what she wanted, and if such a state of soul was called unbelief, it made no difference to her. But the other confession made her weep bitterly.
