A firm blue vault

Leaving the nursery, Levin stops on the verandah. Rain drips from the limes, and at every flash of lightning the Milky Way and a familiar triangular constellation vanish and reappear as if thrown back by an unerring hand. He puts the dangerous question — the Jews, Mahomedans, Confucians, Buddhists, are hundreds of millions deprived of the one blessing without which life has no meaning? — then corrects himself for trying to express in reason what was revealed to his heart. Watching a planet shift past a birch branch, he reasons that astronomers calculate from the visible movement of the sky around a stationary earth, and that his own conclusions must rest likewise on the goodness verifiable in his soul; other creeds he has no right to decide about. Kitty passes, sees by a flash of lightning that he is calm and happy, and asks whether Koznyshev's room has the new washstand. He decides not to tell her. He will still be angry with Ivan, still argue, still blame her for his own fears — and his life now has an unquestionable meaning of goodness he has the power to give it.

The astronomical analogy resolves the objection by refusing it: verification happens at one meridian, and other creeds are outside his jurisdiction. Tolstoy then withholds the confession — Kitty asks about a washstand, and the secret stays inexpressible — and ends the novel on a list of everything that will not change. The last sentence claims meaning rather than happiness, and gives Levin the work of supplying it.