Page 56 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘According to that, if my senses are annihilated, if my
body is dead, I can have no existence of any sort?’ he
queried.
The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental

suffering at the interruption, looked round at the strange
inquirer, more like a bargeman than a philosopher, and
turned his eyes upon Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask:
What’s one to say to him? But Sergey Ivanovitch, who
had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness than
the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to
answer the professor, and at the same time to comprehend
the simple and natural point of view from which the
question was put, smiled and said:
‘That question we have no right to answer as yet.’
‘We have not the requisite data,’ chimed in the
professor, and he went back to his argument. ‘No,’ he
said; ‘I would point out the fact that if, as Pripasov directly
asserts, perception is based on sensation, then we are
bound to distinguish sharply between these two
conceptions.’
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the
professor to go.

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