The initial letters in chalk

Levin stays with the men rather than make his attentions obvious, talking about the village commune and Pestsov's 'chorus principle' with no interest except in getting everyone to agree. Then Kitty appears in the doorway. He offers his view that people argue warmly only because they cannot make out what an opponent wants to prove, and that agreement comes the moment you name the thing you actually like; she grasps the badly-expressed thought and finds the right words for it. On women's work he takes Dolly's side until Kitty says a girl may be so placed that she cannot enter a family without humiliation, and he understands the fear of being an old maid and gives up his position at once. She draws circles on the card-table's green cloth with chalk, and he writes initial letters: when you answered it cannot be, did you mean then or never? She answers 'then', and asks to be forgiven; he has nothing to forgive and never ceased loving her. The old Prince calls it playing 'secretary'. Everything has been said.

The proposal is transacted in initials on a card-table, which is Tolstoy's answer to the whole dinner: two people who understand each other need almost no words, while five clever men needed a course each. The theory Levin states about arguments — say what you like and the dispute ends — is demonstrated by Kitty two paragraphs later on the subject of old maids.