Page 1274 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘I can’t say.’
‘Well, but I can tell you: your receiving some five
thousand, let’s say, for your work on the land, while our
host, the peasant here, however hard he works, can never

get more than fifty roubles, is just as dishonest as my
earning more than my chief clerk, and Malthus getting
more than a station-master. No, quite the contrary; I see
that society takes up a sort of antagonistic attitude to these
people, which is utterly baseless, and I fancy there’s envy
at the bottom of it...’
‘No, that’s unfair,’ said Veslovsky; ‘how could envy
come in? There is something not nice about that sort of
business.’
‘You say,’ Levin went on, ‘that it’s unjust for me to
receive five thousand, while the peasant has fifty; that’s
true. It is unfair, and I feel it, but..’
‘It really is. Why is it we spend our time riding,
drinking, shooting, doing nothing, while they are forever
at work?’ said Vassenka Veslovsky, obviously for the first
time in his life reflecting on the question, and
consequently considering it with perfect sincerity.
‘Yes, you feel it, but you don’t give him your
property,’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, intentionally, as it
seemed, provoking Levin.

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