"Well, now! we don't always do that."
"All the same, you don't propose until your love is fully ripe, or when you have made up your mind between two possible choices. But the young girl cannot make a choice. They pretend that she can choose, but she cannot; she can only answer 'yes' or 'no.'"
"Well! the choice was between me and Vronsky," thought Levin; and the resuscitated dead love in his soul seemed to die a second time, giving his heart an additional pang.
"Darya Aleksandrovna," said he, "thus one chooses a gown or any trifling merchandise, but not love. Besides, the choice has been made, and so much the better .... and it cannot be done again."
"Oh! pride, pride! " said Dolly, as if she would express her scorn for the degradation of his sentiments compared with those which only women are able to comprehend. "When you offered yourself to Kitty, she was in just that situation where she could not give an answer. She was in doubt; the choice was you or Vronsky. She saw him every day; you she had not seen for a long time. If she had been older, it would have been different; if I, for example, had been in her place, I should not have hesitated. He was always distasteful to me, and so that is the end of it."
Levin remembered Kitty's reply: "No, this cannot be...."
"Darya Aleksandrovna," said he, dryly, "I am touched by your confidence in me, but I think you are mistaken. But whether I am right or wrong, this pride which you so despise makes it impossible for me ever to think about Katerina Aleksandrovna; you understand? utterly impossible."
"I will say only one thing more. You must know that I am speaking to you of my sister, whom I love as my own children. I don't say that she loves you, but I only wish to say that her reply at that moment amounted to nothing at all."
"I don't know," said Levin, leaping suddenly to his
