“Yes, you see this woman, Marya Nikolaevna, did not know how to manage all this,” said Levin. “And⁠ ⁠… I must own I’m very, very glad you came. You are such purity that.⁠ ⁠…” He took her hand and did not kiss it (to kiss her hand in such closeness to death seemed to him improper); he merely squeezed it with a penitent air, looking at her brightening eyes.

“It would have been miserable for you to be alone,” she said, and lifting her hands which hid her cheeks flushing with pleasure, twisted her coil of hair on the nape of her neck and pinned it there. “No,” she went on, “she did not know how.⁠ ⁠… Luckily, I learned a lot at Soden.”

“Surely there are not people there so ill?”

“Worse.”

“What’s so awful to me is that I can’t see him as he was when he was young. You would not believe how charming he was as a youth, but I did not understand him then.”