Anna Karenina - Part 6 - Page 111/121

"You're married, I've heard?" said the landowner.

"Yes," Levin answered, with proud satisfaction. "Yes, it's

rather strange," he went on. "So we live without making

anything, as though we were ancient vestals set to keep in a

fire."

The landowner chuckled under his white mustaches.

"There are some among us, too, like our friend Nikolay

Ivanovitch, or Count Vronsky, that's settled here lately, who try

to carry on their husbandry as though it were a factory; but so

far it leads to nothing but making away with capital on it."

"But why is it we don't do like the merchants? Why don't we cut

down our parks for timber?" said Levin, returning to a thought

that had struck him.

"Why, as you said, to keep the fire in. Besides that's not work

for a nobleman. And our work as noblemen isn't done here at the

elections, but yonder, each in our corner. There's a class

instinct, too, of what one ought and oughtn't to do. There's the

peasants, too, I wonder at them sometimes; any good peasant tries

to take all the land he can. However bad the land is, he'll work

it. Without a return too. At a simple loss."

"Just as we do," said Levin. "Very, very glad to have met you,"

he added, seeing Sviazhsky approaching him.

"And here we've met for the first time since we met at your

place," said the landowner to Sviazhsky, "and we've had a good

talk too."

"Well, have you been attacking the new order of things?" said

Sviazhsky with a smile.

"That we're bound to do."

"You've relieved your feelings?"