Anna Karenina - Part 3

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.