• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘Yes, yes,’ said Levin, ‘it’s perfectly true. I always feel that there’s no real economy in my farming, and yet I do it ... You feel a sort of responsibility towards the land.’

‘Here’s what I’ll tell you,’ the landowner went on. ‘I had a merchant for a neighbour. We took a walk round my farm, my garden. “No,” he says, “Stepan Vassilyich, you’ve got everything going in good order, but your little garden’s neglected.” Though my garden’s in quite good order. “If it was me, I’d cut those lindens down. Only the sap must have risen. You’ve got a thousand lindens here, and each one would yield two good pieces of bast.10 Bast fetches a nice price these days, and you can cut a good bit of lumber out of the lindens.” ’

‘And he’d use the money to buy cattle or land for next to nothing and lease it out to muzhiks,’ Levin finished with a smile, obviously having met with such calculations more than once. ‘And he’ll make a fortune. While you and I - God help us just to hang on to what’s ours and leave it to our children.’

‘You’re married, I hear?’ said the landowner.

‘Yes,’ Levin replied with proud satisfaction. ‘Yes, it’s a strange thing,’ he went on. ‘The way we live like this without reckoning, as if we’ve been appointed, like ancient vestals,11 to tend some sort of fire.’

The landowner smiled under his white moustache.

‘There are also some among us - our friend Nikolai Ivanych, for instance, or Count Vronsky, who’s settled here now - they want to introduce industry into agronomy; but that hasn’t led to anything yet except the destroying of capital.’

‘But why don’t we do as the merchants do? Cut down the lindens for bast?’ said Levin, going back to a thought that had struck him.

‘It’s tending the fire, as you say. No, that’s no business for noblemen. And our noblemen’s business isn’t done here at the elections, but there in our own corner. There’s also the instinct of your class, what’s done and what isn’t done. And the muzhiks are the same, to look at them sometimes: a good muzhik just takes and rents as much land as he can. No matter how poor it is, he ploughs away. Also without reckoning. For an outright loss.’

‘Just like us,’ said Levin. ‘It’s been very, very nice to meet you again,’ he added, seeing Sviyazhsky approaching them.

‘And here we’ve just met for the first time since we were at your place,’ said the landowner, ‘so we fell to talking.’

‘Well, have you denounced the new ways?’ Sviyazhsky said with a smile.

‘That, too.’

‘Unburdened our souls.’

XXX

Sviyazhsky took Levin under the arm and went with him to their people.

Now it was impossible to avoid Vronsky. He stood with Stepan Arkadyich and Sergei Ivanovich and looked straight at the approaching Levin.

‘Delighted! I believe I had the pleasure of meeting you ... at Princess Shcherbatsky’s,’ he said, holding out his hand to Levin.

‘Yes, I remember our meeting very well,’ said Levin and, flushing crimson, he turned away at once and began talking with his brother.

Vronsky smiled slightly and went on talking with Sviyazhsky, evidently having no wish to get into conversation with Levin; but Levin, while talking with his brother, kept looking back at Vronsky, trying to think up something to say to him to smooth over his rudeness.

‘What comes next?’ asked Levin, looking at Sviyazhsky and Vronsky.

‘Next is Snetkov. He must either refuse or accept,’ replied Sviyazhsky.

‘And what about him, has he accepted or not?’

‘The thing is that he’s done neither,’ said Vronsky.

‘And if he refuses, who’s going to stand?’ asked Levin, who kept looking at Vronsky.

‘Whoever wants to,’ said Sviyazhsky.

‘Will you?’ asked Levin.

‘Certainly not,’ said Sviyazhsky, embarrassed and casting a fearful glance at the venomous gentleman who was standing by Sergei Ivanovich.

‘Who, then? Nevedovsky?’ said Levin, feeling himself at a loss.

But that was worse still. Nevedovsky and Sviyazhsky were the two candidates.

‘Not I, in any case,’ the venomous gentleman