Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART THREE CHAPTER 32
“But that’s utter waste of time. That force finds a certain form of activity of itself,
according to the stage of its development. There have been slaves first everywhere,
then metayers; and we have the half-crop system, rent, and day laborers. What are
you trying to find?”
Levin suddenly lost his temper at these words, because at the bottom of his heart
he was afraid that it was true–true that he was trying to hold the balance even between
communism and the familiar forms, and that this was hardly possible.
“I am trying to find means of working productively for myself and for the laborers.
I want to organize...” he answered hotly.
“You don’t want to organize anything; it’s simply just as you’ve been all your life,
that you want to be original to pose as not exploiting the peasants simply, but with
some idea in view.”
“Oh, all right, that’s what you think–and let me alone!” answered Levin, feeling
the muscles of his left cheek twitching uncontrollably.
“You’ve never had, and never have, convictions; all you want is to please your
vanity.”
“Oh, very well; then let me alone!”
“And I will let you alone! and it’s high time I did, and go to the devil with you!
and I’m very sorry I ever came!”
In spite of all Levin’s efforts to soothe his brother afterwards, Nikolay would listen
to nothing he said, declaring that it was better to part, and Konstantin saw that it
simply was that life was unbearable to him.
Nikolay was just getting ready to go, when Konstantin went in to him again and
begged him, rather unnaturally, to forgive him if he had hurt his feelings in any way.
“Ah, generosity!” said Nikolay, and he smiled. “If you want to be right, I can give
you that satisfaction. You’re in the right; but I’m going all the same.”
It was only just at parting that Nikolay kissed him, and said, looking with sudden
strangeness and seriousness at his brother:
“Anyway, don’t remember evil against me, Kostya!” and his voice quivered.
These were the only words that had been spoken sincerely between them. Levin
knew that those words meant, “You see, and you know, that I’m in a bad way, and
maybe we shall not see each other again.” Levin knew this, and the tears gushed
from his eyes. He kissed his brother once more, but he could not speak, and knew
not what to say.
Three days after his brother’s departure, Levin too set off for his foreign tour.
Happening to meet Shtcherbatsky, Kitty’s cousin, in the railway train, Levin greatly
astonished him by his depression.
“What’s the matter with you?” Shtcherbatsky asked him.
“Oh, nothing; there’s not much happiness in life.”
“Not much? You come with me to Paris instead of to Mulhausen. You shall see
how to be happy.”
“No, I’ve done with it all. It’s time I was dead.”
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