“I don’t know what to think,” Levin answered, smiling. “Sergey seems very strange to me in that way. I told you, you know.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes, that he was in love with that girl who died.⁠ ⁠…”

“That was when I was a child; I know about it from hearsay and tradition. I remember him then. He was wonderfully sweet. But I’ve watched him since with women; he is friendly, some of them he likes, but one feels that to him they’re simply people, not women.”

“Yes, but now with Varenka⁠ ⁠… I fancy there’s something.⁠ ⁠…”

“Perhaps there is.⁠ ⁠… But one has to know him.⁠ ⁠… He’s a peculiar, wonderful person. He lives a spiritual life only. He’s too pure, too exalted a nature.”

“Why? Would this lower him, then?”

“No, but he’s so used to a spiritual life that he can’t reconcile himself with actual fact, and Varenka is after all fact.”