The bachelors' dinner, and a doubt

Barred by custom from seeing his bride, Levin dines with three bachelors: his brother, Chirikov his best man, and Katavasov the natural scientist, who declares the talented Levin dead and believes in a division of labour by which those fit for nothing else make men. Told he will never hunt bears again, Levin finds the prospect of being forbidden agreeable. He swears he feels no regret for his freedom, and is told his soul is in such chaos he could not find it if it were there. Alone afterwards he asks the question again, and a voice adds another: does he know her thoughts at all? Suppose she does not love him, is marrying only to be married, will find out too late — and jealousy of Vronsky returns as if it were yesterday. He goes to her and says there is still time to stop it. She weeps; he kneels; within five minutes they are reconciled, and she tells him she loves him because she completely understands him. The Princess finds them on a trunk arguing about which dress to give Dunyasha.

Levin's panic is the diary confession running the other way: having required her to accept his past, he cannot believe she has. Tolstoy resolves it not with reassurance but with a reason — she understands him — and then drops the whole crisis into a dispute about a brown dress, which is what marriage will actually consist of.