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In his student days he had all but been in love with the eldest,

Dolly, but she was soon married to Oblonsky. Then he began being

in love with the second. He felt, as it were, that he had to be

in love with one of the sisters, only he could not quite make out

which. But Natalia, too, had hardly made her appearance in the

world when she married the diplomat Lvov. Kitty was still a child

when Levin left the university. Young Shtcherbatsky went into the

navy, was drowned in the Baltic, and Levin's relations with the

Shtcherbatskys, in spite of his friendship with Oblonsky, became

less intimate. But when early in the winter of this year Levin

came to Moscow, after a year in the country, and saw the

Shtcherbatskys, he realized which of the three sisters he was

indeed destined to love.