Page 356 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

rug round him, and lighted a cigar. ‘How is it you don’t
smoke? A cigar is a sort of thing, not exactly a pleasure,
but the crown and outward sign of pleasure. Come, this is
life! How splendid it is! This is how In should like to live!’

‘Why, who prevents you?’ said Levin, smiling.
‘No, you’re a lucky man! You’ve got everything you
like. You like horses—and you have them; dogs—you
have them; shooting— you have it; farming—you have it.’
‘Perhaps because I rejoice in what I have, and don’t fret
for what I haven’t,’ said Levin, thinking of Kitty.
Stepan Arkadyevitch comprehended, looked at him,
but said nothing.
Levin was grateful to Oblonsky for noticing, with his
never-failing tact, that he dreaded conversation about the
Shtcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But
now Levin was longing to find out what was tormenting
him so, yet he had not the courage to begin.
‘Come, tell me how things are going with you,’ said
Levin, bethinking himself that it was not nice of him to
think only of himself.
Stepan Arkadyevitch’s eyes sparkled merrily.
‘You don’t admit, I know, that one can be fond of new
rolls when one has had one’s rations of bread—to your
mind it’s a crime; but I don’t count life as life without

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