It seemed to each of them that the life he led himself was the only real life, and the life led by his friend was a mere phantasm.

Oblonsky could not restrain a slight mocking smile at the sight of Levin.

How often he had seen him come up to Moscow from the country where he was doing something, but what precisely Stepan Arkadyevitch could never quite make out, and indeed he took no interest in the matter.

Levin arrived in Moscow always excited and in a hurry, rather ill at ease and irritated by his own want of ease, and for the most part with a perfectly new, unexpected view of things.

Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed at this, and liked it.