"I have only to go stubbornly on towards my aim, and I shall
attain my end," thought Levin; "and it's something to work and
take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually;
the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole
system of culture, the chief element in the condition of the
people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty,
general prosperity and content; instead of hostility, harmony and
unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a
revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little
circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, the whole
world. Because a just idea cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it's an
aim worth working for. And its being me, Kostya Levin, who went
to a ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shtcherbatskaya
girl, and who was intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless
creature--that proves nothing; I feel sure Franklin felt just as
worthless, and he too had no faith in himself, thinking of
himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most
likely, had an Agafea Mihalovna to whom he confided his secrets."
Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the darkness.
The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and
brought part of the money for the wheat. An agreement had been
made with the old servant, and on the road the bailiff had
learned that everywhere the corn was still standing in the
fields, so that his one hundred and sixty shocks that had not
been carried were nothing in comparison with the losses of
others.
After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an
easy chair with a book, and as he read he went on thinking of the
journey before him in connection with his book. Today all the
significance of his book rose before him with special
distinctness, and whole periods ranged themselves in his mind in
illustration of his theories. "I must write that down," he
thought. "That ought to form a brief introduction, which I
thought unnecessary before." He got up to go to his writing
table, and Laska, lying at his feet, got up too, stretching and
looking at him as though to inquire where to go. But he had not
time to write it down, for the head peasants had come round, and
Levin went out into the hall to them.
After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about the
labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had
business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat down to
work.