Anna Karenina - Part 8

"Do you know, Kostya, with whom Sergey Ivanovitch traveled on his

way here?" said Dolly, doling out cucumbers and honey to the

children; "with Vronsky! He's going to Servia."

"And not alone; he's taking a squadron out with him at his own

expense," said Katavasov.

"That's the right thing for him," said Levin. "Are volunteers

still going out then?" he added, glancing at Sergey Ivanovitch.

Sergey Ivanovitch did not answer. He was carefully with a blunt

knife getting a live bee covered with sticky honey out of a cup

full of white honeycomb.

"I should think so! You should have seen what was going on at the

station yesterday!" said Katavasov, biting with a juicy sound

into a cucumber.

"Well, what is one to make of it? For mercy's sake, do explain

to me, Sergey Ivanovitch, where are all those volunteers going,

whom are they fighting with?" asked the old prince, unmistakably

taking up a conversation that had sprung up in Levin's absence.

"With the Turks," Sergey Ivanovitch answered, smiling serenely,

as he extricated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly kicking,

and put it with the knife on a stout aspen leaf.

"But who has declared war on the Turks?--Ivan Ivanovitch Ragozov

and Countess Lidia Ivanovna, assisted by Madame Stahl?"

"No one has declared war, but people sympathize with their

neighbors' sufferings and are eager to help them," said Sergey

Ivanovitch.

"But the prince is not speaking of help," said Levin, coming to

the assistance of his father-in-law, "but of war. The prince

says that private persons cannot take part in war without the

permission of the government."

"Kostya, mind, that's a bee! Really, they'll sting us!" said

Dolly, waving away a wasp.

"But that's not a bee, it's a wasp," said Levin.

"Well now, well, what's your own theory?" Katavasov said to Levin

with a smile, distinctly challenging him to a discussion. "Why

have not private persons the right to do so?"

"Oh, my theory's this: war is on one side such a beastly, cruel,

and awful thing, that no one man, not to speak of a Christian,

can individually take upon himself the responsibility of

beginning wars; that can only be done by a government, which is

called upon to do this, and is driven inevitably into war. On

the other hand, both political science and common sense teach us

that in matters of state, and especially in the matter of war,

private citizens must forego their personal individual will."