Anna Karenina - Part 8

From much of what was spoken and written on the subject, Sergey

Ivanovitch differed on various points. He saw that the Slavonic

question had become one of those fashionable distractions which

succeed one another in providing society with an object and an

occupation. He saw, too, that a great many people were taking up

the subject from motives of self-interest and self-advertisement.

He recognized that the newspapers published a great deal that was

superfluous and exaggerated, with the sole aim of attracting

attention and outbidding one another. He saw that in this

general movement those who thrust themselves most forward and

shouted the loudest were men who had failed and were smarting

under a sense of injury--generals without armies, ministers not

in the ministry, journalists not on any paper, party leaders

without followers. He saw that there was a great deal in it that

was frivolous and absurd. But he saw and recognized an

unmistakable growing enthusiasm, uniting all classes, with which

it was impossible not to sympathize. The massacre of men who

were fellow Christians, and of the same Slavonic race, excited

sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against the

oppressors. And the heroism of the Servians and Montenegrins

struggling for a great cause begot in the whole people a longing

to help their brothers not in word but in deed.

But in this there was another aspect that rejoiced Sergey

Ivanovitch. That was the manifestation of public opinion. The

public had definitely expressed its desire. The soul of the

people had, as Sergey Ivanovitch said, found expression. And the

more he worked in this cause, the more incontestable it seemed to

him that it was a cause destined to assume vast dimensions, to

create an epoch.

He threw himself heart and soul into the service of this great

cause, and forgot to think about his book. His whole time now

was engrossed by it, so that he could scarcely manage to answer

all the letters and appeals addressed to him. He worked the

whole spring and part of the summer, and it was only in July that

he prepared to go away to his brother's in the country.

He was going both to rest for a fortnight, and in the very heart

of the people, in the farthest wilds of the country, to enjoy the

sight of that uplifting of the spirit of the people, of which,

like all residents in the capital and big towns, he was fully

persuaded. Katavasov had long been meaning to carry out his

promise to stay with Levin, and so he was going with him.