“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.”