Page 586 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

I? If you insist on a bill you shall pay me five roubles a
month; but it’s really too bad of you.’
‘No, thank you. We can manage very well now.’
‘Oh, well, then, I’ll have a look at your cows, and if

you’ll allow me, I’ll give directions about their food.
Everything depends on their food.’
And Levin, to turn the conversation, explained to
Darya Alexandrovna the theory of cow-keeping, based on
the principle that the cow is simply a machine for the
transformation of food into milk, and so on.
He talked of this, and passionately longed to hear more
of Kitty, and, at the same time, was afraid of hearing it. He
dreaded the breaking up of the inward peace he had
gained with such effort.
‘Yes, but still all this has to be looked after, and who is
there to look after it?’ Darya Alexandrovna responded,
without interest.
She had by now got her household matters so
satisfactorily arranged, thanks to Marya Philimonovna, that
she was disinclined to make any change in them; besides,
she had no faith in Levin’s knowledge of farming. General
principles, as to the cow being a machine for the
production of milk, she looked on with suspicion. It
seemed to her that such principles could only be a

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