Nobody could rob him of that.

She had said to him that even at the beginning of the journey she had known that she did not love him--she had known but he had not, and even though he had cheated himself with the glittering bubble of an illusion the splendour had been there....
Meanwhile behind his despair there was something else stirring.

He has told me that upon that afternoon he was only very dimly, very very faintly aware of it, aware of it only fiercely to deny it.

He knew, however stoutly he might refuse to acknowledge it, that the events of the last weeks had bred in him some curiosity, some excitement that he could not analyse.

He would like to have thought that his life began and ended only in Marie Ivanovna, but the Battle of S---- had, as it were in spite of himself, left something more.
He found that he recalled the details of that battle as though his taking part in it had bound him to something.