“I live alone in the country, as I used to. I’m busy looking after the land,” answered Konstantin, watching with horror the greediness with which his brother ate and drank, and trying to conceal that he noticed it.
“Why don’t you get married?”
“It hasn’t happened so,” Konstantin answered, reddening a little.
“Why not? For me now … everything’s at an end! I’ve made a mess of my life. But this I’ve said, and I say still, that if my share had been given me when I needed it, my whole life would have been different.”
Konstantin made haste to change the conversation.
“Do you know your little Vanya’s with me, a clerk in the countinghouse at Pokrovskoe.”
Nikolay jerked his neck, and sank into thought.
“Yes, tell me what’s going on at Pokrovskoe. Is the house standing still, and the birch trees, and our schoolroom? And Philip the gardener, is he living? How I remember the arbor and the seat! Now mind and don’t alter anything in the house, but make haste and get married, and make everything as it used to be again. Then I’ll come and see you, if your wife is nice.”
“But come to me now,” said Levin. “How nicely we would arrange it!”
“I’d come and see you if I were sure I should not find Sergey Ivanovitch.”
“You wouldn’t find him there. I live quite independently of him.”
“Yes, but say what you like, you will have to choose between me and him,” he said, looking timidly into his brother’s face.
This timidity touched Konstantin.