<h3>Chapter 24</h3>
<p>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 workpeople 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 this 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 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.”</p>
<p>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 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.</p>
<p>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!”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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! 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.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.