Loaves in the baker's window

Levin walks the empty streets, cannot swallow a piece of roll, and finds the Shcherbatskys' door still locked. Without food for a day or sleep for two nights he feels independent of his body, certain he could fly upwards or knock down the corner of a house. In that state he sees what he never sees again: two boys going to school, pigeons flapping up glittering in the snowdust, loaves set out by an invisible hand in a baker's window with the smell of fresh bread — so beautiful he laughs and cries. At twelve he takes an izvoshchik whose sledge is the best he ever rode in. The hall-porter knows everything and is hiding his joy; the young dandy footman knows too. Mlle Linon goes out, rapid light steps cross the parquet, and Kitty is borne toward him by some invisible force and puts her hands on his shoulders. Her parents have consented. The Princess weeps and laughs; the old Prince, moist-eyed, says he always wished it, and Kitty kisses his fleshy hand.

Tolstoy dates the vision precisely — 'what he then saw he never saw again' — and makes it out of boys, pigeons and bread rather than anything elevated. The state is produced by two nights without sleep and a day without food, which he records without undermining it. Kitty crosses the room having decided nothing, and the novel's one uncomplicated happiness arrives unplanned.