Anna Karenina - Part 7

"You'll be at Arseny's, anyway; talk to him, he will tell what we

decided."

"Oh, I agree to everything Arseny thinks beforehand. I'll go and

see him. By the way, if I do go to the concert, I'll go with

Natalia. Well, good-bye."

On the steps Levin was stopped by his old servant Kouzma, who had

been with him before his marriage, and now looked after their

household in town.

"Beauty" (that was the left shaft-horse brought up from the

country) "has been badly shod and is quite lame," he said. "What

does your honor wish to be done?"

During the first part of their stay in Moscow, Levin had used his

own horses brought up from the country. He had tried to arrange

this part of their expenses in the best and cheapest way

possible; but it appeared that their own horses came dearer than

hired horses, and they still hired too.

"Send for the veterinary, there may be a bruise."

"And for Katerina Alexandrovna?" asked Kouzma.

Levin was not by now struck as he had been at first by the fact

that to get from one end of Moscow to the other he had to have

two powerful horses put into a heavy carriage, to take the

carriage three miles through the snowy slush and to keep it

standing there four hours, paying five roubles every time.

Now it seemed quite natural.

"Hire a pair for our carriage from the jobmaster," said he.

"Yes, sir."

And so, simply and easily, thanks to the facilities of town life,

Levin settled a question which, in the country, would have called

for so much personal trouble and exertion, and going out onto the

steps, he called a sledge, sat down, and drove to Nikitsky. On

the way he thought no more of money, but mused on the

introduction that awaited him to the Petersburg savant, a writer

on sociology, and what he would say to him about his book.

Only during the first days of his stay in Moscow Levin had been

struck by the expenditure, strange to one living in the country,

unproductive but inevitable, that was expected of him on every

side. But by now he had grown used to it. That had happened to

him in this matter which is said to happen to drunkards--the

first glass sticks in the throat, the second flies down like a

hawk, but after the third they're like tiny little birds. When

Levin had changed his first hundred-rouble note to pay for

liveries for his footmen and hall-porter he could not help

reflecting that these liveries were of no use to anyone--but

they were indubitably necessary, to judge by the amazement of the

princess and Kitty when he suggested that they might do without

liveries,--that these liveries would cost the wages of two

laborers for the summer, that is, would pay for about three

hundred working days from Easter to Ash Wednesday, and each a day

of hard work from early morning to late evening--and that

hundred-rouble note did stick in his throat. But the next note,

changed to pay for providing a dinner for their relations, that

cost twenty-eight roubles, though it did excite in Levin the

reflection that twenty-eight roubles meant nine measures of oats,

which men would with groans and sweat have reaped and bound and

thrashed and winnowed and sifted and sown,--this next one he

parted with more easily. And now the notes he changed no longer

aroused such reflections, and they flew off like little birds.

Whether the labor devoted to obtaining the money corresponded to

the pleasure given by what was bought with it, was a

consideration he had long ago dismissed. His business

calculation that there was a certain price below which he could

not sell certain grain was forgotten too. The rye, for the price

of which he had so long held out, had been sold for fifty kopecks

a measure cheaper than it had been fetching a month ago. Even

the consideration that with such an expenditure he could not go

on living for a year without debt, that even had no force. Only

one thing was essential: to have money in the bank, without

inquiring where it came from, so as to know that one had the

wherewithal to buy meat for tomorrow. And this condition had

hitherto been fulfilled; he had always had the money in the bank.

But now the money in the bank had gone, and he could not quite

tell where to get the next installment. And this it was which,

at the moment when Kitty had mentioned money, had disturbed him;

but he had no time to think about it. He drove off, thinking of

Katavasov and the meeting with Metrov that was before him.