und at
Vronsky, who stood near her. "I must rest a little before my
journey."

"Are you certainly going tomorrow then?" asked Vronsky.

"Yes, I suppose so," answered Anna, as it were wondering at the
boldness of his question; but the irrepressible, quivering
brilliance of her eyes and her smile set him on fire as she said
it.

Anna Arkadyevna did not stay to supper, but went home.

Chapter 24

"Yes, there is something in me hateful, repulsive," thought Levin,
as he came away from the Shtcherbatskys', and walked in the
direction of his brother's lodgings. "And I don't get on with
other people. Pride, they say. No, I have no pride. If I had
any pride, I should not have put myself in such a position." And
he pictured to himself Vronsky, happy, good-natured, clever, and
self-possessed, certainly never placed in the awful position in
which he had been that evening. "Yes, she was bound to choose
him. So it had to be, and I cannot complain of anyone or
anything. I am myself to blame. What right had I to imagine she
would care to join her life to mine? Who am I and what am I? A
nobody, not wanted by any one, nor of use to anybody." And he
recalled his brother Nikolay, and dwelt with pleasure on the
thought of him. "Isn't he right that everything in the world is
base and loathsome? And are we fair in our judgment of brother
Nikolay? Of course, from the point of view of Prokofy, seeing
him in a torn cloak and tipsy, he's a despicable person. But I
know him differently. I know his soul, and know that we are like
him. And I, instead of going to seek him out, went out to
dinner, and came here." Levin walked up to a lamppost, read his
brother's address, which was in his pocketbook, and called a
sledge. All the long way to his brother's, Levin vividly
recalled all the facts familiar to him of his brother Nikolay's
life. He remembered how his brother, while at the university,
and for a year afterwards, had, in spite of the jeers of his
companions, lived like a monk, strictly observing all religious
rites, services, and fasts, and avoiding every sort of pleasure,
especially women. And afterwards, how he had all at once broken
out: he had associated with the most horrible people, and rushed
into the most senseless debauchery. He remembered later the
scandal over a boy, whom he had taken from the country to bring
up, and, in a fit of rage, had so violently beaten that
proceedings were brought against him