inclined the heart to reveries.

'Have you noticed,' began Bersenyev, eking out his words with
gesticulations, 'what a strange feeling nature produces in us?
Everything in nature is so complete, so defined, I mean to say, so
content with itself, and we understand that and admire it, and at the
same time, in me at least, it always excites a kind of restlessness, a
kind of uneasiness, even melancholy. What is the meaning of it? Is it
that in the face of nature we are more vividly conscious of all our
incompleteness, our indefiniteness, or have we little of that content
with which nature is satisfied, but something else--I mean to say,
what we need, nature has not?'

'H'm,' replied Shubin, 'I'll tell you, Andrei Petrovitch, what all
that comes from. You describe the sensations of a solitary man, who
is not living but only looking on in ecstasy. Why look on? Live,
yourself, and you will be all right. However much you knock at
nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words,
because she is dumb. She will utter a musical sound, or a moan, like a
harp string, but don't expect a song from her. A living heart,
now--that will give you your answer--especially a woman's heart. So,
my dear fellow, I advise you to get yourself some one to share your
heart, and all your distressing sensations will vanish at once.
"That's what we need," as you say. This agitation, and melancholy, all
that, you know, is simply a hunger of a kind. Give the stomach some
real food, and everything will be right directly. Take your place in
the landscape, live in the body, my dear boy. And after all, what is
nature? what's the use of it? Only hear the word, love--what an
intense, glowing sound it has! Nature--what a cold, pedantic
expression. And so' (Shubin began humming), 'my greetings to Marya