Anna Karenina

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
workspeople 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 the 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
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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
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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
said to himself. The thought of this made him cold and hostile to her. "I
should not be able to speak to her without a feeling of reproach; I could not
look at her without resentment; and she will only hate me all the more, as
she's bound to. And besides, how can I now, after what Darya
Alexandrovna told me, go to see them? Can I help showing that I know
what she told me? And me to go magnanimously to forgive her, and have
pity on her! Me go through a performance before her of forgiving, and
deigning to bestow my love on her!... What induced Darya Alexandrovna
to tell me that? By chance I might have seen her, then everything would
have happened of itself; but, as it is, it's out of the question, out of the
question!"
Darya Alexandrovna sent him a letter, asking him for a side-saddle for
Kitty's use. "I'm told you have a side-saddle," she wrote to him; "I hope you
will bring it over yourself."
This was more than he could stand. How could a woman of any
intelligence, of any delicacy, put her sister in such a humiliating position!
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He wrote ten notes, and tore them all up, and sent the saddle without any
reply. To write that he would go was impossible, because he could not go;
to write that he could not come because something prevented him, or that
he would be away, that was still worse. He sent the saddle without an
answer, and with a sense of having done something shameful; he handed
over all the now revolting business of the estate to the bailiff, and set off
next day to a remote district to see his friend Sviazhsky, who had splendid
marshes for grouse in his neighborhood, and had lately written to ask him
to keep a long-standing promise to stay with him. The grouse-marsh, in the
Surovsky district, had long tempted Levin, but he had continually put off
this visit on account of his work on the estate. Now he was glad to get away
from the neighborhood of the Shtcherbatskys, and still more from his farm
work, especially on a shooting expedition, which always in trouble served
as the best consolation.
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