Anna Karenina (Penguin) - Leo Tolstoy [22]
Levin had come across the articles they were discussing in magazines, and had read them, being interested in them as a development of the bases of natural science, familiar to him from his studies at the university, but he had never brought together these scientific conclusions about the animal origin of man,13 about reflexes, biology and sociology, with those questions about the meaning of life and death which lately had been coming more and more often to his mind.
Listening to his brother’s conversation with the professor, he noticed that they connected the scientific questions with the inner, spiritual ones, several times almost touched upon them, but that each time they came close to what seemed to him the most important thing, they hastily retreated and again dug deeper into the realm of fine distinctions, reservations, quotations, allusions, references to authorities, and he had difficulty understanding what they were talking about.
‘I cannot allow,’ Sergei Ivanovich said with his usual clarity and precision of expression and elegance of diction, ‘I can by no means agree with Keiss that my whole notion of the external world stems from sense impressions. The fundamental concept of being itself is not received through the senses, for there exists no special organ for conveying that concept.’
‘Yes, but they - Wurst and Knaust and Pripasov -14 will reply to you that your consciousness of being comes from the totality of your sense impressions, that this consciousness of being is the result of sensations. Wurst even says directly that where there are no sensations, there is no concept of being.’
‘I would say the reverse,’ Sergei Ivanovich began ...
But here again it seemed to Levin that, having approached the most important thing, they were once more moving away, and he decided to put a question to the professor.
‘Therefore, if my senses are destroyed, if my body dies, there can be no further existence?’ he asked.
The professor, vexed and as if mentally pained by the interruption, turned to the strange questioner, who looked more like a barge-hauler than a philosopher, then shifted his gaze to Sergei Ivanovich as if to ask: what can one say to that? But Sergei Ivanovich, who spoke with far less strain and one-sidedness than the professor, and in whose head there still remained room enough both for responding to the professor and for understanding the simple and natural point of view from which the question had been put, smiled and said:
‘That question we still have no right to answer ...’
‘We have no data,’ the professor confirmed and went on with his arguments. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I will point out that if, as Pripasov states directly, sensation does have its basis in impression, we must distinguish strictly between these two concepts.’
Levin listened no more and waited until the professor left.
VIII
When the professor had gone, Sergei Ivanovich turned to his brother.
‘Very glad you’ve come. Staying long? How’s the farming?’
Levin knew that his older brother had little interest in farming and that he asked about it only as a concession to him, and therefore he answered only about the sales of wheat and about money.
Levin wanted to tell his brother of his intention to marry and to ask his advice; he was even firmly resolved on it. But when he saw his brother, listened to his conversation with the professor, and then heard the inadvertently patronizing tone with which his brother asked him about farm matters (their mother’s estate had not been divided, and Levin was in charge of both parts), for some reason he felt unable to begin talking with his brother about his decision to marry. He felt that his brother would not look upon it as he would have wished.
‘Well, how are things with your zemstvo?’ asked Sergei Ivanovich, who was very interested in the zemstvo and ascribed great significance to it.
‘I don’t really know ...’
‘How’s that? Aren’t you a member of the board?’
‘No, I’m no longer a member. I resigned,’ replied Konstantin Levin, ‘and I don’t go to the meetings any more.’
‘Too bad!