Only during his very first days in Moscow had Levin been struck by those unproductive but inevitable expenses, so strange for a country-dweller, that were demanded of him on all sides. Now he had grown used to them. What had happened to him in this respect was what they say happens with drunkards: the first glass is a stake, the second a snake, and from the third on it’s all little birdies. When Levin changed the first hundred-rouble note to buy liveries for his footman and hall porter, he calculated that these liveries - totally useless but inevitable and necessary, judging by the princess’s and Kitty’s astonishment at his hint that they might be dispensed with - would cost as much as two summer workers, meaning about three hundred workdays from Easter to Advent, each one a day of hard work from early morning till late in the evening - and that hundred-rouble note still went down like a stake. But the next one, broken to buy provisions for a family dinner that had cost twenty-eight roubles, though it had called up in Levin the recollection that twenty-eight roubles meant about seventy-two bushels of oats which, with much sweating and groaning, had been mowed, bound, carted, threshed, winnowed, sifted and bagged - this next one all the same had gone a little more easily. And now the notes he broke had long ceased to call up such thoughts and flew off like little birdies. Whether the labour spent in acquiring money corresponded to the pleasure afforded by what was bought with it was a long-lost consideration. The economic consideration that there was a certain price below which a certain kind of grain could not be sold, was also forgotten. His rye, the price of which he had insisted on for such a long time, was sold at fifty kopecks less per measure than had been offered a month earlier. Even the consideration that with such expenses it would be impossible to get through the year without going into debt no longer had any significance. Only one thing was required: to have money in the bank, without asking where it came from, so as always to know how to pay for the next day’s beef. And so far he had observed that consideration: he had always had money in the bank. But now the money in the bank had come to an end and he did not quite know where to get more. It was this that upset him for a moment when Kitty reminded him about money; but he had no time to think of it. He drove on, thinking about Katavasov and the impending meeting with Metrov.
III
During his stay in Moscow Levin had again become close with his former university friend, Professor Katavasov, whom he had not seen since his marriage. He liked Katavasov for the clarity and simplicity of his world-view. Levin thought that the clarity of Katavasov’s world-view came from the poverty of his nature, and Katavasov thought that the inconsistency of Levin’s thought came from a lack of mental discipline; but Levin liked Katavasov’s clarity, and Katavasov liked the abundance of Levin’s undisciplined thoughts, and they loved to get together and argue.
Levin read some parts of his writing to Katavasov, and he liked them. The day before, meeting Levin at a public lecture, Katavasov had told him that the famous Metrov, whose article Levin had liked so much, was in Moscow and was very interested in what Katavasov had told him about Levin’s work, and that Metrov would be calling on him the next day at eleven o‘clock and would be very glad to make his acquaintance.
‘You’re decidedly improving, my friend, it’s nice to see it,’ said Katavasov, meeting Levin in the small drawing room. ‘I heard the bell and thought: can it be he’s on time? ... Well, how about these Montenegrins? Born fighters.’1
‘What about them?’ asked Levin.
Katavasov told him the latest news in a few words, then, going into the study, introduced Levin to a short, stocky man of very pleasant appearance. This was Metrov. The conversation dwelt for a brief time on politics and on what view was taken of the latest events in the highest Petersburg spheres. Metrov told them the words, which he had from a reliable source, supposedly uttered on that occasion by the emperor and one of his ministers. Katavasov had heard, also reliably, that the emperor had said something quite different. Levin tried to conceive of circumstances in which both things could have been said, and the conversation on that subject ceased.
‘So he’s almost finished a book on the natural conditions of the worker in relation to the land,’ said Katavasov. ‘I’m no expert, but what I liked about it, as a natural scientist, was that he doesn’t consider mankind as something outside zoological laws, but, on the contrary, regards it as dependent on the environment and looks for the laws of development within that dependence.’
‘That is very interesting,’ said Metrov.
