quering
hero?" he thought. He did not know that Levin was feeling as
though he had grown wings. Levin knew she was listening to his
words and that she was glad to listen to him. And this was the
only thing that interested him. Not in that room only, but in
the whole world, there existed for him only himself, with
enormously increased importance and dignity in his own eyes, and
she. He felt himself on a pinnacle that made him giddy, and far
away down below were all those nice excellent Karenins,
Oblonskys, and all the world.

Quite without attracting notice, without glancing at them, as
though there were no other places left, Stepan Arkadyevitch put
Levin and Kitty side by side.

"Oh, you may as well sit there," he said to Levin.

The dinner was as choice as the china, in which Stepan
Arkadyevitch was a connoisseur. The _soupe Marie-Louise_ was a
splendid success; the tiny pies eaten with it melted in the mouth
and were irreproachable. The two footmen and Matvey, in white
cravats, did their duty with the dishes and wines unobtrusively,
quietly, and swiftly. On the material side the dinner was a
success; it was no less so on the immaterial. The conversation,
at times general and at times between individuals, never paused,
and towards the end the company was so lively that the men rose
from the table, without stopping speaking, and even Alexey
Alexandrovitch thawed.

Chapter 10

Pestsov liked thrashing an argument out to the end, and was not
satisfied with Sergey Ivanovitch's words, especially as he felt
the injustice of his view.

"I did not mean," he said over the soup, addressing Alexey
Alexandrovitch, "mere density of population alone, but in
conjunction with fundamental ideas, and not by means of
principles."

"It seems to me," Alexey Alexandrovitch said languidly, and with
no haste, "that that's the same thing. In my opinion, influence
over another people is only possible to the people which has the
higher development, which..."

"But that's just the question," Pestsov broke in in his bass.

He was always in a hurry to speak, and seemed always to put his
whole soul into what he was saying. "In what are we to make
higher development consist? The English, the French, the
Germans, which is at the highest stage of development? Which of
them will nationalize the other? We see the Rhine provinces have
been turned French, but the Germans are not at a lower stage!" he
shouted. "There is a