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 are talking about?" murmured Levin, with his eyes fixed on his companion. "Do you believe that this is possible?"

"I think it is possible. Why should n't it be?"

"No, do you really think that it is possible? No! tell me what you really think. If .... if she should refuse me .... and I am almost certain that ...."

"Why should you be?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling at this emotion.

"It is my intuition. It would be terrible for me and for her."

"Oh! in any case, I can't see that it would be very terrible for her; a young girl is always flattered to be asked in marriage."

"Young girls in general, perhaps, not she."

Stepan Arkadyevitch smiled; he perfectly understood Levin's feeling, knew that for him all the young girls in the universe were divided into two categories: in the one, all the young girls in existence except her—and these girls had all the faults common to humanity, in other words, ordinary girls; in the other, she alone, without any faults, and placed above the rest of humanity.

"Hold on! take some gravy," said he, stopping Levin's hand, who was pushing away the gravy.

Levin took the gravy in all humility, but he did not give Oblonsky a chance to eat.

"No, just wait, wait," said he; "you understand this is for me a question of life and death. I have never spoken to any one else about it, and I cannot speak to any one else but you. I know we are very different from each other, have different tastes, views, everything; but I know also that you love me, and that you understand me, and that's the reason I am so fond of you. Now, for God's sake, be perfectly sincere with me."

"I will tell you what I think," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, smiling. "But I will tell you more: my wife—a most extraordinary woman"—and Stepan Arkadyevitch sighed, as he remembered his relations with his wife—then after a moment's silence he proceeded