`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 Arkadyevich 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 Shcherbatskys, and so saying nothing about them. But now Levin was longing to find out about that which was tormenting him so, yet had not the courage to begin.

`Come, tell me how things are going with you,' said Levin, bethinking himself that it was not good of him to think only of himself.

Stepan Arkadyevich's eyes sparkled merrily.

`You don't admit, I know, that one can be fond of new rolls when one has had one's ration of bread - to your mind it's a crime; but I don't count life as life without love,' he said, taking Levin's question in his own way. `What am I to do? I'm made that way. And really, one does so little harm to anyone, and gives oneself so much pleasure...'

`What! is there something new, then?' queried Levin.

`Yes, my boy, there is! There, do you see, you know the type of Ossian's women... women, such as one sees in dreams... Well, these women are sometimes to be met with in reality.... And these women are terrible. Woman, don't you know, is such a subject that no matter how much you study it, it's always perfectly new.'

`Well, then, it would be better not to study it.'

`No. Some mathematician has said that enjoyment lies in the search for truth, not in the finding of it.'

Levin listened in silence, and, in spite of all the efforts he made, he could not in the least enter into the feelings of his friend and understand his sentiments and the charm of studying such women.