Anna Karenina - Part 7

And Levin began carefully, as it were, feeling his ground, to

expound his views. He knew Metrov had written an article against

the generally accepted theory of political economy, but to what

extent he could reckon on his sympathy with his own new views he

did not know and could not guess from the clever and serene face

of the learned man.

"But in what do you see the special characteristics of the

Russian laborer?" said Metrov; "in his biological

characteristics, so to speak, or in the condition in which he is

placed?"

Levin saw that there was an idea underlying this question with

which he did not agree. But he went on explaining his own idea

that the Russian laborer has a quite special view of the land,

different from that of other people; and to support this

proposition he made haste to add that in his opinion this

attitude of the Russian peasant was due to the consciousness of

his vocation to people vast unoccupied expanses in the East.

"One may easily be led into error in basing any conclusion on the

general vocation of a people," said Metrov, interrupting Levin.

"The condition of the laborer will always depend on his relation

to the land and to capital."

And without letting Levin finish explaining his idea, Metrov

began expounding to him the special point of his own theory.

In what the point of his theory lay, Levin did not understand,

because he did not take the trouble to understand. He saw that

Metrov, like other people, in spite of his own article, in which

he had attacked the current theory of political economy, looked

at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of

view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been

obliged to admit that in the eastern--much the larger--part of

Russia rent was as yet nil, that for nine-tenths of the eighty

millions of the Russian peasants wages took the form simply of

food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far

exist except in the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was

only from that point of view that he considered every laborer,

though in many points he differed from the economists and had his

own theory of the wage-fund, which he expounded to Levin.

Levin listened reluctantly, and at first made objections. He

would have liked to interrupt Metrov, to explain his own thought,

which in his opinion would have rendered further exposition of

Metrov's theories superfluous. But later on, feeling convinced

that they looked at the matter so differently, that they could

never understand one another, he did not even oppose his

statements, but simply listened. Although what Metrov was saying

was by now utterly devoid of interest for him, he yet experienced

a certain satisfaction in listening to him. It flattered his

vanity that such a learned man should explain his ideas to him so

eagerly, with such intensity and confidence in Levin's

understanding of the subject, sometimes with a mere hint

referring him to a whole aspect of the subject. He put this down

to his own credit, unaware that Metrov, who had already discussed

his theory over and over again with all his intimate friends,

talked of it with special eagerness to every new person, and in

general was eager to talk to anyone of any subject that

interested him, even if still obscure to himself.