ary conditions of engaged couples would
spoil his special happiness; but it ended in his doing exactly as
other people did, and his happiness being only increased thereby
and becoming more and more special, more and more unlike anything
that had ever happened.

"Now we shall have sweetmeats to eat," said Mademoiselle Linon--
and Levin drove off to buy sweetmeats.

"Well, I'm very glad," said Sviazhsky. "I advise you to get the
bouquets from Fomin's."

"Oh, are they wanted?" And he drove to Fomin's.

His brother offered to lend him money, as he would have so many
expenses, presents to give....

"Oh, are presents wanted?" And he galloped to Foulde's.

And at the confectioner's, and at Fomin's, and at Foulde's he saw
that he was expected; that they were pleased to see him, and
prided themselves on his happiness, just as every one whom he had
to do with during those days. What was extraordinary was that
everyone not only liked him, but even people previously
unsympathetic, cold, and callous, were enthusiastic over him,
gave way to him in everything, treated his feeling with
tenderness and delicacy, and shared his conviction that he was
the happiest man in the world because his betrothed was beyond
perfection. Kitty too felt the same thing. When Countess
Nordston ventured to hint that she had hoped for something
better, Kitty was so angry and proved so conclusively that
nothing in the world could be better than Levin, that Countess
Nordston had to admit it, and in Kitty's presence never met Levin
without a smile of ecstatic admiration.

The confession he had promised was the one painful incident of
this time. He consulted the old prince, and with his sanction
gave Kitty his diary, in which there was written the confession
that tortured him. He had written this diary at the time with a
view to his future wife. Two things caused him anguish: his lack
of purity and his lack of faith. His confession of unbelief
passed unnoticed. She was religious, had never doubted the
truths of religion, but his external unbelief did not affect her
in the least. Through love she knew all his soul, and in his
soul she saw what she wanted, and that such a state of soul
should be called unbelieving was to her a matter of no account.
The other confession set her weeping bitterly.

Levin, not without an inner struggle, handed her his diary. He
knew that between him and her there could not be, and should not
be, secrets, and