He laughed a cold and malignant laugh.
“The manner of life you have chosen is reflected, I suppose, in your
ideas. I have too much respect or contempt, or both … I respect your past
and despise your present … that I was far from the interpretation you put on
my words.”
Anna sighed and bowed her head.
“Though indeed I fail to comprehend how, with the independence you
show,” he went on, getting hot, “—announcing your infidelity to your
husband and seeing nothing reprehensible in it, apparently—you can see
anything reprehensible in performing a wife’s duties in relation to your
husband.”
“Alexey Alexandrovitch! What is it you want of me?”
“I want you not to meet that man here, and to conduct yourself so that
neither the world nor the servants can reproach you … not to see him. That’s
not much, I think. And in return you will enjoy all the privileges of a
faithful wife without fulfilling her duties. That’s all I have to say to you.
Now it’s time for me to go. I’m not dining at home.” He got up and moved
towards the door.
Anna got up too. Bowing in silence, he let her pass before him.
Chapter 24
The night spent by Levin on the haycock did not pass without result for
him. The way in which he had been managing his land revolted him and
had lost all attraction for him. In spite of the magnificent harvest, never had
there been, or, at least, never it seemed to him, had there been so many
hindrances and so many quarrels between him and the peasants as that year,
and the origin of these failures and this hostility was now perfectly
comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work itself,
and the consequent greater intimacy with the peasants, the envy he felt of
them, of their life, the desire to adopt that life, which had been to him that
night not a dream but an intention, the execution of which he had thought
out in detail—all this had so transformed his view of the farming of the land
as he had managed it, that he could not take his former interest in it, and
could not help seeing that unpleasant relation between him and the
workpeople which was the foundation of it all. The herd of improved cows
such as Pava, the whole land ploughed over and enriched, the nine level
fields surrounded with hedges, the two hundred and forty acres heavily
manured, the seed sown in drills, and all the rest of it—it was all splendid if
only the work had been done for themselves, or for themselves and
comrades—people in sympathy with them. But he saw clearly now (his
work on a book of agriculture, in which the chief element in husbandry was
to have been the laborer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort of farming
he was carrying on was nothing but a cruel and stubborn struggle between
him and the laborers, in which there was on one side—his side—a continual
intense effort to change everything to a pattern he considered better; on the
other side, the natural order of things. And in this struggle he saw that with
immense expenditure of force on his side, and with no effort or even
intention on the other side, all that was attained was that the work did not
go to the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle and
land were spoiled with no good to anyone. Worst of all, the energy
expended on this work was not simply wasted. He could not help feeling
now, since the meaning of this system had become clear to him, that the aim
of his energy was a most unworthy one. In reality, what was the struggle
about? He was struggling for every farthing of his share (and he could not
help it, for he had only to relax his efforts, and he would not have had the
money to pay his laborers’ wages), while they were only struggling to be
able to do their work easily and agreeably, that is to say, as they were used
to doing it. It was for his interests that every laborer should work as hard as
possible, and that while doing so he should keep his wits about him, so as to
try not to break the winnowing machines, the horse rakes, the thrashing
machines, that he should attend to what he was doing. What the laborer
wanted was to work as pleasantly as possible, with rests, and above all,
carelessly and heedlessly, without thinking. That summer Levin saw this at
every step. He sent the men to mow some clover for hay, picking out the
worst patches where the clover was overgrown with grass and weeds and of
no use for seed; again and again they mowed the best acres of clover,
justifying themselves by the pretense that the bailiff had told them to, and
trying to pacify him with the assurance that it would be splendid hay; but he
knew that it was owing to those acres being so much easier to mow. He sent
out a hay machine for pitching the hay—it was broken at the first row
because it was dull work for a peasant to sit on the seat in front with the
great wings waving above him. And he was told, “Don’t trouble, your
honor, sure, the womenfolks will pitch it quick enough.” The ploughs were
practically useless, because it never occurred to the laborer to raise the
share when he turned the plough, and forcing it round, he strained the
horses and tore up the ground, and Levin was begged not to mind about it.
The horses were allowed to stray into the wheat because not a single laborer
would consent to be night-watchman, and in spite of orders to the contrary,
the laborers insisted on taking turns for night duty, and Ivan, after working
all day long, fell asleep, and was very penitent for his fault, saying, “Do
what you will to me, your honor.”
They killed three of the best calves by letting them into the clover
aftermath without care as to their drinking, and nothing would make the
men believe that they had been blown out by the clover, but they told him,
by way of consolation, that one of his neighbors had lost a hundred and
twelve head of cattle in three days. All this happened, not because anyone
felt ill-will to Levin or his farm; on the contrary, he knew that they liked
him, thought him a simple gentleman (their highest praise); but it happened
simply because all they wanted was to work merrily and carelessly, and his
interests were not only remote and incomprehensible to them, but fatally
opposed to their most just claims. Long before, Levin had felt
dissatisfaction with his own position in regard to the land. He saw where his
boat leaked, but he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving
himself. (Nothing would be left him if he lost faith in it.) But now he could
deceive himself no longer. The farming of the land, as he was managing it,
had become not merely unattractive but revolting to him, and he could take
no further interest in it.
To this now was joined the presence, only twenty-five miles off, of Kitty
Shtcherbatskaya, whom he longed to see and could not see. Darya
Alexandrovna Oblonskaya had invited him, when he was over there, to
come; to come with the object of renewing his offer to her sister, who
would, so she gave him to understand, accept him now. Levin himself had
felt on seeing Kitty Shtcherbatskaya that he had never ceased to love her;
but he could not go over to the Oblonskys’, knowing she was there. The fact
that he had made her an offer, and she had refused him, had placed an
insuperable barrier between her and him. “I can’t ask her to be my wife
merely because she can’t be the wife of the man she wanted to marry,” he
