Why Levin came to Moscow

The reason Levin blushed: he has come to Moscow solely to propose to Kitty. The Levins and Shcherbatskys are old Moscow families, and as a student Levin fell in love less with any one girl than with the whole household — the French and English on alternate days, the piano practice, the drives to the Tverskoy Boulevard with Mademoiselle Linon, Kitty's short satin cloak and red stockings. Having lost his own parents early, he saw there the family life he had been denied. He nearly loved Dolly, then Nataly, but Dolly married Oblonsky and Nataly the diplomat Lvov; young Prince Shcherbatsky entered the navy and drowned in the Baltic. Meeting them again this winter he knew it was Kitty. Two months in Moscow convinced him it was hopeless — at thirty-two he is only a country squire breeding cows and shooting snipe — and he fled to the country. Two months alone there have sent him back determined.

Backfill delivered at the last possible moment, so that the proposal ahead already carries a decade of weight. The telling detail is that Levin loved the family before he loved the girl: his want is for a household, which is why the novel can end with him inside one and still leave the question open.