Anna Karenina - Part 3

Levin was insufferably bored that evening with the ladies; he was

stirred as he had never been before by the idea that the

dissatisfaction he was feeling with his system of managing his

land was not an exceptional case, but the general condition of

things in Russia; that the organization of some relation of the

laborers to the soil in which they would work, as with the

peasant he had met half-way to the Sviazhskys', was not a dream,

but a problem which must be solved. And it seemed to him that

the problem could be solved, and that he ought to try and solve

it.

After saying good-night to the ladies, and promising to stay the

whole of the next day, so as to make an expedition on horseback

with them to see an interesting ruin in the crown forest, Levin

went, before going to bed, into his host's study to get the books

on the labor question that Sviazhsky had offered him.

Sviazhsky's study was a huge room, surrounded by bookcases and

with two tables in it--one a massive writing table, standing in

the middle of the room, and the other a round table, covered with

recent numbers of reviews and journals in different languages,

ranged like the rays of a star round the lamp. On the writing

table was a stand of drawers marked with gold lettering, and full

of papers of various sorts.

Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a rocking-chair.

"What are you looking at there?" he said to Levin, who was

standing at the round table looking through the reviews.

"Oh, yes, there's a very interesting article here," said

Sviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand. "It

appears," he went on, with eager interest, "that Friedrich was

not, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the partition

of Poland. It is proved..."

And with his characteristic clearness, he summed up those new,

very important, and interesting revelations. Although Levin was

engrossed at the moment by his ideas about the problem of the

land, he wondered, as he heard Sviazhsky: "What is there inside

of him? And why, why is he interested in the partition of

Poland?" When Sviazhsky had finished, Levin could not help

asking: "Well, and what then?" But there was nothing to follow.

It was simply interesting that it had been proved to be so and

so. But Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explain

why it was interesting to him.

"Yes, but I was very much interested by your irritable neighbor,"

said Levin, sighing. "He's a clever fellow, and said a lot that

was true."