Arkadyevitch’s advice that they should go abroad, he was much surprised that she did not agree to this, and had some definite requirements of her own in regard to their future. She knew Levin had work he loved in the country. She did not, as he saw, understand this work, she did not even care to understand it. But that did not prevent her from regarding it as a matter of great importance. And then she knew their home would be in the country, and she wanted to go, not abroad where she was not going to live, but to the place where their home would be. This definitely expressed purpose astonished Levin. But since he did not care either way, he immediately asked Stepan Arkadyevitch, as though it were his duty, to go down to the country and to arrange everything there to the best of his ability with the taste of which he had so much.
“But I say,” Stepan Arkadyevitch said to him one day after he had come back from the country, where he had got everything ready for the young people’s arrival, “have you a certificate of having been at confession?”
“No. But what of it?”
“You can’t be married without it.”
“ Aïe, aïe, aïe! ” cried Levin. “Why, I believe it’s nine years since I’ve taken the sacrament! I never thought of it.”
“You’re a pretty fellow!” said Stepan Arkadyevitch laughing, “and you call me a Nihilist! But this won’t do, you know. You must take the sacrament.”
“When? There are four days left now.”
Stepan Arkadyevitch arranged this also, and Levin had to go to confession. To Levin, as to any unbeliever who respects the beliefs of others, it was exceedingly disagreeable to be present at and take part in