Page 1705 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

letting the hay spoil; and it was equally impossible to mow
those acres where a young copse had been planted. It was
impossible to excuse a laborer who had gone home in the
busy season because his father was dying, however sorry

he might feel for him, and he must subtract from his pay
those costly months of idleness. But it was impossible not
to allow monthly rations to the old servants who were of
no use for anything.
Levin knew that when he got home he must first of all
go to his wife, who was unwell, and that the peasants who
had been waiting for three hours to see him could wait a
little longer. He knew too that, regardless of all the
pleasure he felt in taking a swarm, he must forego that
pleasure, and leave the old man to see to the bees alone,
while he talked to the peasants who had come after him to
the bee-house.
Whether he were acting rightly or wrongly he did not
know, and far from trying to prove that he was, nowadays
he avoided all thought or talk about it.
Reasoning had brought him to doubt, and prevented
him from seeing what he ought to do and what he ought
not. When he did not think, but simply lived, he was
continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in
his soul, determining which of two possible courses of

1704 of 1759