“Why not?” he thought. “If it were only a passing fancy or a passion, if it were only this attraction⁠—this mutual attraction (I can call it a mutual attraction), but if I felt that it was in contradiction with the whole bent of my life⁠—if I felt that in giving way to this attraction I should be false to my vocation and my duty⁠ ⁠… but it’s not so. The only thing I can say against it is that, when I lost Marie, I said to myself that I would remain faithful to her memory. That’s the only thing I can say against my feeling.⁠ ⁠… That’s a great thing,” Sergey Ivanovitch said to himself, feeling at the same time that this consideration had not the slightest importance for him personally, but would only perhaps detract from his romantic character in the eyes of others. “But apart from that, however much I searched, I should never find anything to say against my feeling. If I were choosing by considerations of suitability alone, I could not have found anything better.”