Chapter XXIV
The night spent by Levin on the haycock did
not pass without result for him. The way in which he had been
managing his land revolted him and had lost all attraction for him.
In spite of the magnificent harvest, never had there been, or, at
least, never it seemed to him, had there been so many hindrances
and so many quarrels between him and the peasants as that year, and
the origin of these failures and this hostility was now perfectly
comprehensible to him. The delight he had experienced in the work
itself, and the consequent greater intimacy with the peasants, the
envy he felt of them, of their life, the desire to adopt that life,
which had been to him that night not a dream but an intention, the
execution of which he had thought out in detail—all this had so
transformed his view of the farming of the land as he had managed
it, that he could not take his former interest in it, and could not
help seeing that unpleasant relation between him and the
workspeople which was the foundation of it all. The herd of
improved cows such as Pava, the whole land ploughed over and
enriched, the nine level fields surrounded with hedges, the two
hundred and forty acres heavily manured, the seed sown in drills,
and all the rest of it—it was all splendid if only the work had
been done for themselves, or for themselves and comrades—people in
sympathy with them. But he saw clearly now (his work on a book of
agriculture, in which the chief element in husbandry was to have
been the laborer, greatly assisted him in this) that the sort of
farming he was carrying on was nothing but a cruel and stubborn
struggle between him and the laborers, in which there was on one
side—his side—a continual intense effort to change everything to a
pattern he considered better; on the other side, the natural order
of things. And in the struggle he saw that with immense expenditure
of force on his side, and with no effort or even intention on the
other side, all that was attained was that the work did not go to
the liking of either side, and that splendid tools, splendid cattle
and land were spoiled with no good to any one. Worst of all, the
energy expended on this work was not simply wasted. He could not
help feeling now, since the meaning of this system had become clear
to him, that the aim of his energy was a most unworthy one. In
reality, what was the struggle about? He was struggling for every
farthing of his share (and he could not help it, for he had only to
relax his efforts, and he would not have had the money to pay his
laborers’ wages), while they were only struggling to be able to do
their work easily and agreeably, that is to say, as they were used
to doing it. It was for his interests that every laborer should
work as hard as possible, and that while doing so he should keep
his wits about him, so as to try not to break the
winnowing-machines, the horse-rakes, the thrashing-machines, that
he should attend to what he was doing. What the laborer wanted was
to work as pleasantly as possible, with rests, and above all,
carelessly and heedlessly, without thinking. That summer Levin saw
this at every step. He sent the men to mow some clover for hay,
picking out the worst patches where the clover was overgrown with
grass and weeds and of no use for seed; again and again they mowed
the best acres of clover, justifying themselves by the pretense
that the bailiff had told them to, and trying to pacify him with
the assurance that it would be splendid hay; but he knew that it
was owing to those acres being so much easier to mow. He sent out a
hay machine for pitching the hay—it was broken at the first row
because it was dull work for a peasant to sit on the seat in front
with the great wings waving above him. And he was told, “Don’t
trouble, your honor, sure, the women-folks will pitch it quick
enough.” The ploughs were practically useless, because it never
occurred to the laborer to raise the share when he turned the
plough, and forcing it round, he strained the horses and tore up
the ground, and Levin was begged not to mind about it. The horses
were allowed to stray into the wheat because not a single laborer
would consent to be night-watchman, and in spite of orders to the
contrary, the laborers insisted on taking turns for night duty, and
Ivan, after working all day long, fell asleep, and was very
penitent for his fault, saying, “Do what you will to me, your
honor.”
They killed three of the best calves by letting
them into the clover aftermath without care as to their drinking,
and nothing would make the men believe that they had been blown out
by the clover, but they told him, by way of consolation, that one
of his neighbors had lost a hundred and twelve head of cattle in
three days. All this happened, not because any one felt ill-will to
Levin or his farm; on the contrary, he knew that they liked him,
thought him a simple gentleman (their highest praise); but it
happened simply because all they wanted was to work merrily and
carelessly, and his interests were not only remote and
incomprehensible to them, but fatally opposed to their most just
claims. Long before, Levin had felt dissatisfaction with his own
position in regard to the land. He saw where his boat leaked, but
he did not look for the leak, perhaps purposely deceiving himself.
(Nothing would be left him if he lost faith in it.) But now he
could deceive himself no longer. The farming of the land, as he was
managing it, had become not merely unattractive but revolting to
him, and he could take no further interest in it.
To this now was joined the presence, only
twenty-five miles off, of Kitty Shtcherbatskaya, whom he longed to
see and could not see. Darya Alexandrovna Oblonskaya had invited
him, when he was over there, to come; to come with the object of
renewing his offer to her sister, who would, so she gave him to
understand, accept him now. Levin himself had felt on seeing Kitty
Shtcherbatskaya that he had never ceased to love her; but he could
not go over to the Oblonskys’, knowing she was there. The fact that
he had made her an offer, and she had refused him, had placed an
insuperable barrier between her and him. “I can’t ask her to be my
wife merely because she can’t be the wife of the man she wanted to
marry,” he said to himself. The thought of this made him cold and
hostile to her. “I should not be able to speak to her without a
feeling of reproach; I could not look at her without resentment;
and she will only hate me all the more, as she’s bound to. And
besides, how can I now, after what Darya Alexandrovna told me, go
to see them? Can I help showing that I know what she told me? And
me to go magnanimously to forgive her, and have pity on her! Me go
through a performance before her of forgiving, and deigning to
bestow my love on her! ... What induced Darya Alexandrovna to tell
me that? By chance I might have seen her, then everything would
have happened of itself; but, as it is, it’s out of the question,
out of the question!”
Darya Alexandrovna sent him a letter, asking him
for a side-saddle for Kitty’s use. “I’m told you have a
side-saddle,” she wrote to him; “I hope you will bring it over
yourself.”
This was more than he could stand. How could a
woman of any intelligence, of any delicacy, put her sister in such
a humiliating position! He wrote ten notes, and tore them all up,
and sent the saddle without any reply. To write that he would go
was impossible, because he could not go; to write that he could not
come because something prevented him, or that he would be away,
that was still worse. He sent the saddle without an answer, and
with a sense of having done something shameful; he handed over all
the now revolting business of the estate to the bailiff, and set
off next day to a remote district to see his friend Sviazhsky, who
had splendid marshes for grouse in his neighborhood, and had lately
written to ask him to keep a long-standing promise to stay with
him. The grouse-marsh, in the Surovsky district, had long tempted
Levin, but he had continually put off this visit on account of his
work on the estate. Now he was glad to get away from the
neighborhood of the Shtcherbatskys, and still more from his
farm-work, especially on a shooting expedition, which always in
trouble served as the best consolation.