Page 366 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Then you’ve as good as given away your forest for
nothing,’ said Levin gloomily.
‘How do you mean for nothing?’ said Stepan
Arkadyevitch with a good-humored smile, knowing that

nothing would be right in Levin’s eyes now.
‘Because the forest is worth at least a hundred and fifty
roubles the acre,’ answered Levin.
‘Oh, these farmers!’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch playfully.
‘Your tone of contempt for us poor townsfolk!... But
when it comes to business, we do it better than anyone. I
assure you I have reckoned it all out,’ he said, ‘and the
forest is fetching a very good price—so much so that I’m
afraid of this fellow’s crying off, in fact. You know it’s not
‘timber,’’ said Stepan Arkadyevitch, hoping by this
distinction to convince Levin completely of the unfairness
of his doubts. ‘And it won’t run to more than twenty-five
yards of fagots per acre, and he’s giving me at the rate of
seventy roubles the acre.’
Levin smiled contemptuously. ‘I know,’ he thought,
‘that fashion not only in him, but in all city people, who,
after being twice in ten years in the country, pick up two
or three phrases and use them in season and out of season,
firmly persuaded that they know all about it. ‘Timber, run

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