Page 524 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

summer day was not long enough for him to get through
all he had to do, while Sergey Ivanovitch was taking a
holiday. But though he was taking a holiday now, that is
to say, he was doing no writing, he was so used to

intellectual activity that he liked to put into concise and
eloquent shape the ideas that occurred to him, and liked to
have someone to listen to him. His most usual and natural
listener was his brother. And so in spite of the friendliness
and directness of their relations, Konstantin felt an
awkwardness in leaving him alone. Sergey Ivanovitch
liked to stretch himself on the grass in the sun, and to lie
so, basking and chatting lazily.
‘You wouldn’t believe,’ he would say to his brother,
‘what a pleasure this rural laziness is to me. Not an idea in
one’s brain, as empty as a drum!’
But Konstantin Levin found it dull sitting and listening
to him, especially when he knew that while he was away
they would be carting dung onto the fields not ploughed
ready for it, and heaping it all up anyhow; and would not
screw the shares in the ploughs, but would let them come
off and then say that the new ploughs were a silly
invention, and there was nothing like the old Andreevna
plough, and so on.

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