Page 375 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Yes, I am out of temper, and do you know why?
Because—excuse me—of your stupid sale..’
Stepan Arkadyevitch frowned good-humoredly, like
one who feels himself teased and attacked for no fault of

his own.
‘Come, enough about it!’ he said. ‘When did anybody
ever sell anything without being told immediately after the
sale, ‘It was worth much more’? But when one wants to
sell, no one will give anything.... No, I see you’ve a
grudge against that unlucky Ryabinin.’
‘Maybe I have. And do you know why? You’ll say
again that I’m a reactionist, or some other terrible word;
but all the same it does annoy and anger me to see on all
sides the impoverishing of the nobility to which I belong,
and, in spite of the amalgamation of classes, I’m glad to
belong. And their impoverishment is not due to
extravagance—that would be nothing; living in good style
—that’s the proper thing for noblemen; it’s only the
nobles who know how to do it. Now the peasants about
us buy land, and I don’t mind that. The gentleman does
nothing, while the peasant works and supplants the idle
man. That’s as it ought to be. And I’m very glad for the
peasant. But I do mind seeing the process of
impoverishment from a sort of—I don’t know what to call

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