Pagina 443 di 2288

Not one word did Stepan Arkadyevitch say in reference to Kitty

and the Shtcherbatskys; he merely gave him greetings from his

wife. Levin was grateful to him for his delicacy and was very

glad of his visitor. As always happened with him during his

solitude, a mass of ideas and feelings had been accumulating

within him, which he could not communicate to those about him.

And now he poured out upon Stepan Arkadyevitch his poetic joy in

the spring, and his failures and plans for the land, and his

thoughts and criticisms on the books he had been reading, and the

idea of his own book, the basis of which really was, though he

was unaware of it himself, a criticism of all the old books on

agriculture. Stepan Arkadyevitch, always charming, understanding

everything at the slightest reference, was particularly charming

on this visit, and Levin noticed in him a special tenderness, as

it were, and a new tone of respect that flattered him.