And in the happiest frame of mind Sviazhsky got up and walked
off, apparently supposing the conversation to have ended at the
very point when to Levin it seemed that it was only just
beginning.
Having lost his antagonist, Levin continued the conversation with
the gray-whiskered landowner, trying to prove to him that all the
difficulty arises from the fact that we don't find out the
peculiarities and habits of our laborer; but the landowner, like
all men who think independently and in isolation, was slow in
taking in any other person's idea, and particularly partial to
his own. He stuck to it that the Russian peasant is a swine and
likes swinishness, and that to get him out of his swinishness one
must have authority, and there is none; one must have the stick,
and we have become so liberal that we have all of a sudden
replaced the stick that served us for a thousand years by lawyers
and model prisons, where the worthless, stinking peasant is fed
on good soup and has a fixed allowance of cubic feet of air.
"What makes you think," said Levin, trying to get back to the
question, "that it's impossible to find some relation to the
laborer in which the labor would become productive?"
"That never could be so with the Russian peasantry; we've no
power over them," answered the landowner.
"How can new conditions be found?" said Sviazhsky. Having eaten
some junket and lighted a cigarette, he came back to the
discussion. "All possible relations to the labor force have been
defined and studied," he said. "The relic of barbarism, the
primitive commune with each guarantee for all, will disappear of
itself; serfdom has been abolished--there remains nothing but
free labor, and its forms are fixed and ready made, and must be
adopted. Permanent hands, day-laborers, rammers--you can't get
out of those forms."
"But Europe is dissatisfied with these forms."
"Dissatisfied, and seeking new ones. And will find them, in all
probability."
"That's just what I was meaning," answered Levin. "Why
shouldn't we seek them for ourselves?"
"Because it would be just like inventing afresh the means for
constructing railways. They are ready, invented."
"But if they don't do for us, if they're stupid?" said Levin.
And again he detected the expression of alarm in the eyes of
Sviazhsky.
"Oh, yes; we'll bury the world under our caps! We've found the
secret Europe was seeking for! I've heard all that; but, excuse
me, do you know all that's been done in Europe on the question of
the organization of labor?"