Page 1711 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 1711
Anna Karenina
‘Mituh!’ (so the peasant called the house porter, in a
tone of contempt), ‘you may be sure he’ll make it pay,
Konstantin Dmitrievitch! He’ll get his share, however he
has to squeeze to get it! He’s no mercy on a Christian. But
Uncle Fokanitch’ (so he called the old peasant Platon), ‘do
you suppose he’d flay the skin off a man? Where there’s
debt, he’ll let anyone off. And he’ll not wring the last
penny out. He’s a man too.’
‘But why will he let anyone off?’
‘Oh, well, of course, folks are different. One man lives
for his own wants and nothing else, like Mituh, he only
thinks of filling his belly, but Fokanitch is a righteous man.
He lives for his soul. He does not forget God.’
‘How thinks of God? How does he live for his soul?’
Levin almost shouted.
‘Why, to be sure, in truth, in God’s way. Folks are
different. Take you now, you wouldn’t wrong a man...’
‘Yes, yes, good-bye!’ said Levin, breathless with
excitement, and turning round he took his stick and
walked quickly away towards home. At the peasant’s
words that Fokanitch lived for his soul, in truth, in God’s
way, undefined but significant ideas seemed to burst out as
though they had been locked up, and all striving towards
1710 of 1759

