Anna Karenina - Part 3

"If I'd only the heart to throw up what's been set going...such a

lot of trouble wasted...I'd turn my back on the whole business,

sell up, go off like Nikolay Ivanovitch...to hear _La Belle

Hélène_," said the landowner, a pleasant smile lighting up his

shrewd old face.

"But you see you don't throw it up," said Nikolay Ivanovitch

Sviazhsky; "so there must be something gained."

"The only gain is that I live in my own house, neither bought

nor hired. Besides, one keeps hoping the people will learn

sense. Though, instead of that, you'd never believe it--the

drunkenness, the immorality! They keep chopping and changing

their bits of land. Not a sight of a horse or a cow. The

peasant's dying of hunger, but just go and take him on as a

laborer, he'll do his best to do you a mischief, and then bring

you up before the justice of the peace."

"But then you make complaints to the justice too," said

Sviazhsky.

"I lodge complaints? Not for anything in the world! Such a

talking, and such a to-do, that one would have cause to regret

it. At the works, for instance, they pocketed the advance-money

and made off. What did the justice do? Why, acquitted them.

Nothing keeps them in order but their own communal court and

their village elder. He'll flog them in the good old style! But

for that there'd be nothing for it but to give it all up and run

away."

Obviously the landowner was chaffing Sviazhsky, who, far from

resenting it, was apparently amused by it.

"But you see we manage our land without such extreme measures,"

said he, smiling: "Levin and I and this gentleman."

He indicated the other landowner.

"Yes, the thing's done at Mihail Petrovitch's, but ask him how

it's done. Do you call that a rational system?" said the

landowner, obviously rather proud of the word "rational."

"My system's very simple," said Mihail Petrovitch, "thank God.

All my management rests on getting the money ready for the autumn

taxes, and the peasants come to me, 'Father, master, help us!'

Well, the peasants are all one's neighbors; one feels for them.

So one advances them a third, but one says: 'Remember, lads, I

have helped you, and you must help me when I need it--whether

it's the sowing of the oats, or the haycutting, or the harvest';

and well, one agrees, so much for each taxpayer--though there

are dishonest ones among them too, it's true."