Page 40 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

disreputable chum, but Oblonsky, with his ready tact, felt
that Levin fancied he might not care to show his intimacy
with him before his subordinates, and so he made haste to
take him off into his room.

Levin was almost of the same age as Oblonsky; their
intimacy did not rest merely on champagne. Levin had
been the friend and companion of his early youth. They
were fond of one another in spite of the difference of their
characters and tastes, as friends are fond of one another
who have been together in early youth. But in spite of
this, each of them—as is often the way with men who
have selected careers of different kinds—though in
discussion he would even justify the other’s career, in his
heart despised it. It seemed to each of them that the life he
led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his
friend was a mere phantasm. Oblonsky could not restrain a
slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin. How often he
had seen him come up to Moscow from the country
where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan
Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he
took no interest in the matter. Levin arrived in Moscow
always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated
by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a
perfectly new, unexpected view of things. Stepan

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