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 "No; if this was unfair, you could not get any enjoyment out of these advantages .... at least I could not. With me the main thing would be to feel that I was not to blame."

"After all, why should we not go out," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, evidently growing tired of this discussion. "You see we are not going to sleep. Come on, let's go out."

Levin made no reply. What he had said in their conversation about his doing right only in a negative sense occupied his mind. "Can one be right only in a negative way?" he asked himself.

"How strong the odor of the fresh hay is," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, as he got up. "It is impossible to go to sleep. Vasenka is hatching some scheme out there. Don't you hear them laughing, and his voice? Won't you come? Come on."

"No, I am not going," said Levin.

"Is this also from principle?" asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, with a smile, as he groped round in the darkness for his cap.

"No, not from principle, but why should I go?"

"Do you know you are laying up misfortune for yourself?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch, having found his cap, and getting up.

"Why so?"

"Don't I see how you are giving in to your wife? I heard how much importance you attached to the question whether she approved of your going off for a couple of days' hunting. That is very well as an idyl, but it does n't work for a whole lifetime. A man ought to be independent; he has his own masculine interests. A man must be manly," said Oblonsky, opening the door.

"What does that mean .... going and flirting with the farm girls?" asked Levin.

"Why not go, if there's fun in it? Ça ne tire pas à conséquence. My wife would not be any the worse off for it, and it affords me amusement. The main thing is the sanctity of the home. There should not be any