‘Yes, it ought to be tried. And I did want to come to the mowing to have a look at you, but the heat was so unbearable that I got no further than the wood. I sat a little, then walked through the wood to the village, met your nurse there and sounded her out about the muzhiks’ view of you. As I understand, they don’t approve of it. She said: “It’s not the master’s work.” Generally it seems to me that in the peasants’ understanding there is a very firmly defined requirement for certain, as they put it, “master‘s” activities. And they don’t allow gentlemen to go outside the limits defined by their understanding.’
‘Maybe. But I’ve never experienced such a pleasure in my life. And there’s no harm in it. Isn’t that so?’ Levin replied. ‘What can I do if they don’t like it? Nothing, I suppose. Eh?’
‘I can see,’ Sergei Ivanovich continued, ‘that you’re generally pleased with your day.’
‘Very pleased. We mowed the whole meadow. And what an old man I made friends with there! Such a delightful man, you’d never imagine it!’
‘Well, so you’re pleased with your day. And so am I. First, I solved two chess problems, one of them a very nice one - it opens with a pawn. I’ll show you. And then I was thinking about our conversation yesterday.’
‘What? Our conversation yesterday?’ said Levin, blissfully narrowing his eyes and puffing after he finished dinner, quite unable to recall what this yesterday’s conversation had been.
‘I find that you’re partly right. Our disagreement consists in this, that you take personal interest as the motive force, while I maintain that every man of a certain degree of education ought to be interested in the common good. You may be right that materially interested activity would be desirable. Generally, your nature is much too
Levin listened to his brother, understood decidedly nothing and did not want to understand. He was afraid only that his brother might ask him a question which would make it clear that he had heard nothing.
‘So there, my good friend,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, touching his shoulder.
‘Yes, of course. Anyhow, I don’t insist,’ Levin replied with a childish, guilty smile. ‘What was it I was arguing about?’ he thought. ‘Of course, I’m right, and he’s right, and everything’s splendid. Only I have to go to the office and give orders.’ He stood up, stretching himself and smiling.
Sergei Ivanovich also smiled.
‘You want to have a stroll, let’s go together,’ he said, not wanting to part from his brother, who simply exuded freshness and briskness. ‘Let’s go, and call in at the office if you need to.’
‘Good heavens!’ cried Levin, so loudly that he frightened Sergei Ivanovich.
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘How is Agafya Mikhailovna’s arm?’ said Levin, slapping his forehead. ‘I forgot all about it.’
‘Much better.’
‘Well, I’ll run over to see her all the same. I’ll be back before you can put your hat on.’
And with a rattle-like clatter of his heels, he ran down the stairs.
VII
While Stepan Arkadyich, having taken almost all the money there was in the house, went to Petersburg to fulfil the most natural and necessary duty, known to all who serve in the government though incomprehensible to those who do not, and without which it is impossible to serve - that of reminding the ministry of himself - and, in going about the fulfilment of this duty, spent his time merrily and pleasantly at the races and in summer houses, Dolly moved with the children to their country estate in order to reduce expenses as much as possible. She moved to her dowry estate, Yergushovo, the same one where the wood had been sold in spring and which was about thirty-five miles from Levin’s Pokrovskoe.
In Yergushovo the big, old house had been torn down long ago, and the prince had refurbished and enlarged the wing. Some twenty years ago, when Dolly was still a child, the wing had been roomy and comfortable, though it stood, as all wings do, sideways to the front drive and the south. But this wing was now old and decayed. When Stepan Arkadyich had gone to sell the wood in the spring, Dolly had asked him to look it over and order the necessary repairs. Stepan Arkadyich, who, like all guilty husbands, was very solicitous of his wife’s comfort, looked the house over himself and gave orders about everything he thought necessary. To his mind, there was a need to re-upholster all the furniture with cretonne, to hang curtains, to clean up the garden, make a little bridge by the pond and plant flowers; but he forgot many other necessary things, the lack of which later tormented Darya Alexandrovna.
