Anna Karenina - LimpidSoft

PART ONE CHAPTER 25
Chapter 25
“So you see,” pursued Nikolay Levin, painfully wrinkling his forehead and twitching.
It was obviously difficult for him to think of what to say and do.
“Here, do you see?”... He pointed to some sort of iron bars, fastened together with
strings, lying in a corner of the room. “Do you see that? That’s the beginning of a
new thing we’re going into. It’s a productive association...”
Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly, consumptive face, and
he was more and more sorry for him, and he could not force himself to listen to what
his brother was telling him about the association. He saw that this association was a
mere anchor to save him from self-contempt. Nikolay Levin went on talking:
“You know that capital oppresses the laborer. The laborers with us, the peasants,
bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that however much they work they
can’t escape from their position of beasts of burden. All the profits of labor, on which
they might improve their position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after that education,
all the surplus values are taken from them by the capitalists. And society’s
so constituted that the harder they work, the greater the profit of the merchants and
landowners, while they stay beasts of burden to the end. And that state of things
must be changed,” he finished up, and he looked questioningly at his brother.
“Yes, of course,” said Konstantin, looking at the patch of red that had come out on
his brother’s projecting cheek bones.
“And so we’re founding a locksmiths’ association, where all the production and
profit and the chief instruments of production will be in common.”
“Where is the association to be?” asked Konstantin Levin.
“In the village of Vozdrem, Kazan government.”
“But why in a village? In the villages, I think, there is plenty of work as it is. Why
a locksmiths’ association in a village?”
“Why? Because the peasants are just as much slaves as they ever were, and that’s
why you and Sergey Ivanovitch don’t like people to try and get them out of their
slavery,” said Nikolay Levin, exasperated by the objection.
Konstantin Levin sighed, looking meanwhile about the cheerless and dirty room.
This sigh seemed to exasperate Nikolay still more.
“I know your and Sergey Ivanovitch’s aristocratic views. I know that he applies
all the power of his intellect to justify existing evils.”
“No; and what do you talk of Sergey Ivanovitch for?” said Levin, smiling.
“Sergey Ivanovitch? I’ll tell you what for!” Nikolay Levin shrieked suddenly at
the name of Sergey Ivanovitch. “I’ll tell you what for.... But what’s the use of talking?
There’s only one thing.... What did you come to me for? You look down on this, and
you’re welcome to,–and go away, in God’s name go away!” he shrieked, getting up
from his chair. “And go away, and go away!”
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