This dear good Sviiazhsky, keeping a stock of ideas simply for public purposes, and obviously having some other principles hidden from Levin, while with the crowd, whose name is legion, he guided public opinion by ideas he did not share; that irascible country gentleman, perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been worried into by life, but wrong in his exasperation against a whole class, and that the best class in Russia; his own dissatisfaction with the work he had been doing, and the vague hope of finding a remedy for all this - all was blended in a sense of inward turmoil, and the anticipation of some solution near at hand.
Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring mattress, that yielded unexpectedly at every movement of his arm or his leg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long while. Not one conversation with Sviiazhsky, though he had said a great deal that was clever, had interested Levin;but the conclusions of the irascible landowner required consideration.
Levin could not help recalling every word he had said, and in imagination amending his own replies.
`Yes, I ought to have said to him: You say that our husbandry does not answer because the peasant hates improvements, and that they must be forced on him by authority. If no system of husbandry answered at all without these improvements, you would be quite right. But the only system that does answer is when the laborer is working in accordance with his habits, just as on the old peasant's land halfway here. Your and our general dissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to blame or the laborers. We have gone our way - the European way - a long while, without asking ourselves about the qualities of our labor force. Let us try to look upon the labor force not as an abstract force but as the Russian mouzhik with his instincts, and let us arrange our system of agriculture in accordance with that. Imagine, I ought to have said to him, that you have the same system as the old peasant has, that you have found means of making your laborers take an interest in the success of the work, and have found the happy mean in the way of improvements which they will admit, and you will, without exhausting the soil, get twice or three times the yield you got before. Divide it in halves, give half as the share of labor, the surplus left you will be greater, and labor's share will be greater too. And to do this one must lower the standard of husbandry and interest the laborers in its success. How to do this? - that's a matter of detail; but undoubtedly it can be done.'
This idea threw Levin into a great excitement. He did not sleep half the night, thinking over in detail the putting of his idea into practice.
He had not intended to go away next day, but he now determined to go home early in the morning. Besides, the sister-in-law with her low-necked bodice aroused in him a feeling akin to shame and remorse for some utterly base action. Most important of all - he must get back without delay: he would have to make haste to put his new project to the peasants before the sowing of the winter wheat, so that the sowing might be undertaken on a new basis.
He had made up his mind to revolutionize his whole system.
[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 3, Chapter 29[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 29 The carrying out of Levin's plan presented many difficulties; but he struggled on, doing his utmost, and attained a result which, though not what he desired, was enough to enable him, without self-deception, to believe that the attempt was worth the trouble. One of the chief difficulties was that the process of cultivating the land was in full swing, that it was impossible to stop everything and begin it all again from the beginning, and the machine had to be mended while in motion.
When on the evening of his arrival home he informed the bailiff of his plans, the latter with visible pleasure agreed with what he said, so long as he was pointing out that all that had been done up to that time was stupid and useless. The bailiff said that he had said so a long while ago, but no heed had been paid him. But as for the proposal made by Levin - to take a part as shareholder with his laborers in each agricultural undertaking - at this the bailiff simply expressed a profound despondency, and offered no definite opinion, but began immediately talking of the urgent necessity of carrying the remaining sheaves of rye the next day, and of sending the men out for the second plowing, so that Levin felt that this was not the time for discussing it.
On beginning to talk to the peasants about it, and making a proposition to cede them the land on new terms, he came into collision with the same great difficulty - that they were so much absorbed by the current work of the day that they had not time to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed scheme.
The simplehearted Ivan, the cowherd, seemed to grasp Levin's proposal fully - that he should with his family take a share of the profits of the cattle yard - and he was in complete sympathy with the plan. But when Levin hinted at the future advantages, Ivan's face expressed alarm and regret that he could not hear all he had to say, and he made haste to find himself some task that would admit of no delay: he either snatched up the fork to pitch the hay out of the pens, or ran to get water or to clear out the manure.
