Anna Karenina - Part 3

"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.