tepan.

When Oblonsky on this occasion, after chatting over some rural concerns
in Levin's district, asked his friend what had specially brought him to
Moscow, Levin blushed and was vexed with himself for blushing. He could
not bring himself to reply that he had come to ask for the hand of
Stepan's sister-in-law Kitty, though that was really his errand. As a
student and a friend of the Shcherbatsky family, belonging like his own
to the old nobility of Moscow, Konstantin Levin at first thought himself
in love with Dolly, the eldest, but she married Oblonsky; then with
Natalie, who married Lyof, a diplomat; and finally his passion settled
on Kitty, who had been only a child when he left the University. He was
now thirty-two, was wealthy, would surely have been reckoned an
acceptable suitor, but had a most exalted opinion of Kitty, and to a
corresponding degree depreciated himself.

He feared that probably Kitty did not love him, and he knew that his
friends only looked upon him as a country proprietor, occupied with
farming, or amusing himself with hunting. He was not what is understood
as a society man. But he felt that he could no longer rest without
seeking to get the question settled whether she would or would not be
his wife.

_III_

Levin made his way to the gate of the Zoological Gardens and followed
the path to the ice-mountains, where he knew that he should find the
Shcherbatskys there, Kitty among them. He had seen their carriage at the
gate. It was a lovely day, and the gaily-clad fashionable people, the
Russian _izbas_ with their carved woodwork, the paths gleaming with
snow, and the old birch-trees, brilliant with icicles, combined to
render the whole scene one of fascination.

Drawing near the ice-mountains, where the sledges rushed down the
inclines, he soon discovered Kitty, who was on the opposite side,
standing in close conversation with a lady. For him her presence filled
the place with light and glory. He asked himself whether he was brave
enough to go and meet her on the ice. The spot where she was seemed to
him like a sanctuary, and all the persons privileged to be near her
seemed to be the elect of heaven. This day the ice was the common
meeting-ground for fashionable people, the masters in the art of skating
being among them. Nikolai Shcherbatsky, Kitty's cousin, catching sight
of Levin, exclaimed, "There is the best skater in Russia." Kitty
cordially invited Levin to skate with her. He d