After reading the letter, he sat a long while in silence.

“I don’t think I have the right to refuse her,” he said, timidly lifting his eyes.

“Dear friend, you never see evil in anyone!”

“On the contrary, I see that all is evil. But whether it is just.⁠ ⁠…”

His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support, and guidance in a matter he did not understand.

“No,” Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him; “there are limits to everything. I can understand immorality,” she said, not quite truthfully, since she never could understand that which leads women to immorality; “but I don’t understand cruelty: to whom? to you! How can she stay in the town where you are? No, the longer one lives the more one learns. And I’m learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness.”