Leo Tolstoy - Leo Tolstoy - The Complete Novels (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 4)

“I have only to go stubbornly on towards my aim, and I shall attain my end,” thought Levin; “and it’s something to work and take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually; the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole system of culture, the chief element in the condition of the people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty, general prosperity and content; instead of hostility, harmony and unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, the whole world. Because a just idea cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it’s an aim worth working for. And its being me, Kostya Levin, who went to a ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shtcherbatskaya girl, and who was intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless creature—that proves nothing; I feel sure Franklin felt just as worthless, and he too had no faith in himself, thinking of himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most likely, had an Agafea Mihalovna to whom he confided his secrets.”

Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the darkness.

The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and brought part of the money for the wheat. An agreement had been made with the old servant, and on the road the bailiff had learned that everywhere the corn was still standing in the fields, so that his one hundred and sixty shocks that had not been carried were nothing in comparison with the losses of others.

After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an easy chair with a book, and as he read he went on thinking of the journey before him in connection with his book. Today all the significance of his book rose before him with special distinctness, and whole periods ranged themselves in his mind in illustration of his theories. “I must write that down,” he thought. “That ought to form a brief introduction, which I thought unnecessary before.” He got up to go to his writing table, and Laska, lying at his feet, got up too, stretching and looking at him as though to inquire where to go. But he had not time to write it down, for the head peasants had come round, and Levin went out into the hall to them.

After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who had business with him, Levin went back to his study and sat down to work.

Laska lay under the table; Agafea Mihalovna settled herself in her place with her stocking.

After writing for a little while, Levin suddenly thought with exceptional vividness of Kitty, her refusal, and their last meeting. He got up and began walking about the room.

“What’s the use of being dreary?” said Agafea Mihalovna. “Come, why do you stay on at home? You ought to go to some warm springs, especially now you’re ready for the journey.”

“Well, I am going away the day after tomorrow, Agafea Mihalovna;

I must finish my work.”

“There, there, your work, you say! As if you hadn’t done enough for the peasants! Why, as ‘tis, they’re saying, ‘Your master will be getting some honor from the Tsar for it.’ Indeed and it is a strange thing; why need you worry about the peasants?”

“I’m not worrying about them; I’m doing it for my own good.”

Agafea Mihalovna knew every detail of Levin’s plans for his land. Levin often put his views before her in all their complexity, and not uncommonly he argued with her and did not agree with her comments. But on this occasion she entirely misinterpreted what he had said.

“Of one’s soul’s salvation we all know and must think before all else,” she said with a sigh. “Parfen Denisitch now, for all he was no scholar, he died a death that God grant every one of us the like,” she said, referring to a servant who had died recently. “Took the sacrament and all.”

“That’s not what I mean,” said he. “I mean that I’m acting for my own advantage. It’s all the better for me if the peasants do their work better.”

“Well, whatever you do, if he’s a lazy good-for-nought, everything’ll be at sixes and sevens. If he has a conscience, he’ll work, and if not, there’s no doing anything.”

“Oh, come, you say yourself Ivan has begun looking after the cattle better.”

“All I say is,” answered Agafea Mihalovna, evidently not speaking at random, but in strict sequence of idea, “that you ought to get married, that’s what I say.”

Agafea Mihalovna’s allusion to the very subject he had only just been thinking about, hurt and stung him. Levin scowled, and without answering her, he sat down again to his work, repeating to himself all that he had been thinking of the real significance of that work. Only at intervals he listened in the stillness to the click of Agafea Mihalovna’s needles, and recollecting what he did not want to remember, he frowned again.

At nine o’clock they heard the bell and the faint vibration of a carriage over the mud.

“Well, here’s visitors come to us, and you won’t be dull,” said Agafea Mihalovna, getting up and going to the door. But Levin overtook her. His work was not going well now, and he was glad of a visitor, whoever it might be.

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Running halfway down the staircase, Levin caught a sound he knew, a familiar cough in the hall. But he heard it indistinctly through the sound of his own footsteps, and hoped he was mistaken. Then he caught sight of a long, bony, familiar figure, and now it seemed there was no possibility of mistake; and yet he still went on hoping that this tall man taking off his fur cloak and coughing was not his brother Nikolay.

Levin loved his brother, but being with him was always a torture. Just now, when Levin, under the influence of the thoughts that had come to him, and Agafea Mihalovna’s hint, was in a troubled and uncertain humor, the meeting with his brother that he had to face seemed particularly difficult. Instead of a lively, healthy visitor, some outsider who would, he hoped, cheer him up in his uncertain humor, he had to see his brother, who knew him through and through, who would call forth all the thoughts nearest his heart, would force him to show himself fully. And that he was not disposed to do.

Angry with himself for so base a feeling, Levin ran into the hall; as soon as he had seen his brother close, this feeling of selfish disappointment vanished instantly and was replaced by pity. Terrible as his brother Nikolay had been before in his emaciation and sickliness, now he looked still more emaciated, still more wasted. He was a skeleton covered with skin.

He stood in the hall, jerking his long thin neck, and pulling the scarf off it, and smiled a strange and pitiful smile. When he saw that smile, submissive and humble, Levin felt something clutching at his throat.

“You see, I’ve come to you,” said Nikolay in a thick voice, never for one second taking his eyes off his brother’s face. “I’ve been meaning to a long while, but I’ve been unwell all the time. Now I’m ever so much better,” he said, rubbing his beard with his big thin hands.

“Yes, yes!” answered Levin. And he felt still more frightened when, kissing him, he felt with his lips the dryness of his brother’s skin and saw close to him his big eyes, full of a strange light.

A few weeks before, Konstantin Levin had written to his brother that through the sale of the small part of the property, that had remained undivided, there was a sum of about two thousand roubles to come to him as his share.

Nikolay said that he had come now to take this money and, what was more important, to stay a while in the old nest, to get in touch with the earth, so as to renew his strength like the heroes of old for the work that lay before him. In spite of his exaggerated stoop, and the emaciation that was so striking from his height, his movements were as rapid and abrupt as ever. Levin led him into his study.