Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART SIX CHAPTER 22
never paused, glancing off one subject, fastening on another, and at times stinging
one or the other to the quick. Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to the quick,
and got so hot that she positively flushed and wondered afterwards whether she had
said anything extreme or unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin, describing
his strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its effects on Russian agriculture.
“I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin,” Vronsky said, smiling, “but
most likely he has never seen the machines he condemns; or if he has seen and tried
any, it must have been after a queer fashion, some Russian imitation, not a machine
from abroad. What sort of views can anyone have on such a subject?”
“Turkish views, in general,” Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with a smile.
“I can’t defend his opinions,” Darya Alexandrovna said, firing up; “but I can say
that he’s a highly cultivated man, and if he were here he would know very well how
to answer you, though I am not capable of doing so.”
“I like him extremely, and we are great friends,” Sviazhsky said, smiling goodnaturedly.
“Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toqué; he maintains, for instance, that district
councils and arbitration boards are all of no use, and he is unwilling to take part
in anything.”
“It’s our Russian apathy,” said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced decanter into
a delicate glass on a high stem; “we’ve no sense of the duties our privileges impose
upon us, and so we refuse to recognize these duties.”
“I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties,” said Darya Alexandrovna,
irritated by Vronsky’s tone of superiority.
“For my part,” pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some reason or other
keenly affected by this conversation, “such as I am, I am, on the contrary, extremely
grateful for the honor they have done me, thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch” (he indicated
Sviazhsky), “in electing me a justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of
being present at the session, of judging some peasants’ quarrel about a horse, is as
important as anything I can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they elect me
for the district council. It’s only in that way I can pay for the advantages I enjoy as
a landowner. Unluckily they don’t understand the weight that the big landowners
ought to have in the state.”
It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely confident he was of
being right at his own table. She thought how Levin, who believed the opposite, was
just as positive in his opinions at his own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was
on his side.
“So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections?” said Sviazhsky.
“But you must come a little beforehand, so as to be on the spot by the eighth. If you
would do me the honor to stop with me.”
“I rather agree with your beau-frère,” said Anna, “though not quite on the same
ground as he,” she added with a smile. “I’m afraid that we have too many of these
public duties in these latter days. Just as in old days there were so many government
functionaries that one had to call in a functionary for every single thing, so now
everyone’s doing some sort of public duty. Alexey has been here now six months,
582