Page 866 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

and then began moving across and came to a standstill at
the door. Without turning round he felt the eyes fixed on
him, and the smile, and he could not help turning round.
She was standing in the doorway with Shtcherbatsky,

looking at him.
‘I thought you were going towards the piano,’ said he,
going up to her. ‘That’s something I miss in the country—
music.’
‘No; we only came to fetch you and thank you,’ she
said, rewarding him with a smile that was like a gift, ‘for
coming. What do they want to argue for? No one ever
convinces anyone, you know.’
‘Yes; that’s true,’ said Levin; ‘it generally happens that
one argues warmly simply because one can’t make out
what one’s opponent wants to prove.’
Levin had often noticed in discussions between the
most intelligent people that after enormous efforts, and an
enormous expenditure of logical subtleties and words, the
disputants finally arrived at being aware that what they had
so long been struggling to prove to one another had long
ago, from the beginning of the argument, been known to
both, but that they liked different things, and would not
define what they liked for fear of its being attacked. He
had often had the experience of suddenly in a discussion

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