‘What’s there to understand? There is no significance. An obsolete institution that goes on moving only by the force of inertia. Look at the uniforms - even they tell you: this is an assembly of justices of the peace, of permanent members and so on, and not of the nobility.’
‘Then why do you come?’ asked Levin.
‘Out of habit, that’s all. And one must also keep up one’s connections. A moral responsibility in a sense. And then, to tell the truth, there is a certain interest. My son-in-law wants to stand as a permanent member; they’re not well-to-do people and I must help him win. But why do these people come?’ he said, pointing to the venomous gentleman who had spoken at the governor’s table.
‘That’s the new generation of nobility.’
‘New it is. But not nobility. They are landlords, and we are landowners. As nobility, they’re committing suicide.’
‘But you yourself say that it’s an outdated institution.’
‘Outdated it is, but still it ought to be treated more respectfully. Take Snetkov ... Good or not, we’ve been a thousand years growing. You know, when you want to make a garden in front of your house, you have to lay it out, and there’s a hundred-year-old tree growing in that spot ... Though it’s old and gnarled, you still won’t cut the old-timer down for the sake of your flower beds, you’ll lay them out so as to include the tree. It can’t be grown in a year,’ he said cautiously, and immediately changed the subject. ‘Well, and how’s your estate?’
‘Not so good. About five per cent.’
‘Yes, but you’re not counting yourself. You’re also worth something. I’ll tell you about myself. Before I took up farming, I had a salary of three thousand roubles in the service. Now I work more than in the service, and like you I get five per cent, and thank God for that. And my work is done free.’
‘Then why do it, if it’s an outright loss?’
‘You just do! What can I say? A habit, and also knowing that you have to do it. I’ll tell you more,’ the landowner went on, leaning his elbow on the windowsill and warming to the subject. ‘My son has no interest in farming. It’s obvious he’ll be a scholar. So there won’t be anybody to carry on. And still you do it. I’ve just planted a garden.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Levin, ‘it’s perfectly true. I always feel that there’s no real economy in my farming, and yet I do it ... You feel a sort of responsibility towards the land.’
‘Here’s what I’ll tell you,’ the landowner went on. ‘I had a merchant for a neighbour. We took a walk round my farm, my garden. “No,” he says, “Stepan Vassilyich, you’ve got everything going in good order, but your little garden’s neglected.” Though my garden’s in quite good order. “If it was me, I’d cut those lindens down. Only the sap must have risen. You’ve got a thousand lindens here, and each one would yield two good pieces of bast.10 Bast fetches a nice price these days, and you can cut a good bit of lumber out of the lindens.” ’
‘And he’d use the money to buy cattle or land for next to nothing and lease it out to muzhiks,’ Levin finished with a smile, obviously having met with such calculations more than once. ‘And he’ll make a fortune. While you and I - God help us just to hang on to what’s ours and leave it to our children.’
‘You’re married, I hear?’ said the landowner.
‘Yes,’ Levin replied with proud satisfaction. ‘Yes, it’s a strange thing,’ he went on. ‘The way we live like this without reckoning, as if we’ve been appointed, like ancient vestals,11 to tend some sort of fire.’
The landowner smiled under his white moustache.
‘There are also some among us - our friend Nikolai Ivanych, for instance, or Count Vronsky, who’s settled here now - they want to introduce industry into agronomy; but that hasn’t led to anything yet except the destroying of capital.’
‘But why don’t we do as the merchants do? Cut down the lindens for bast?’ said Levin, going back to a thought that had struck him.
‘It’s tending the fire, as you say. No, that’s no business for noblemen. And our noblemen’s business isn’t done here at the elections, but there in our own corner. There’s also the instinct of your class, what’s done and what isn’t done. And the muzhiks are the same, to look at them sometimes: a good muzhik just takes and rents as much land as he can. No matter how poor it is, he ploughs away. Also without reckoning. For an outright loss.’
‘Just like us,’ said Levin. ‘It’s been very, very nice to meet you again,’ he added, seeing Sviyazhsky approaching them.
‘And here we’ve just met for the first time since we were at your place,’ said the landowner, ‘so we fell to talking.’
‘Well, have you denounced the new ways?’ Sviyazhsky said with a smile.
‘That, too.’
‘Unburdened our souls.’
XXX
Sviyazhsky took Levin under the arm and went with him to their people.
Now it was impossible to avoid Vronsky. He stood with Stepan Arkadyich and Sergei Ivanovich and looked straight at the approaching Levin.
