Page 717 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

Russia. He considered the Russian peasant as occupying a
stage of development intermediate between the ape and
the man, and at the same time in the local assemblies no
one was readier to shake hands with the peasants and listen

to their opinion. He believed neither in God nor the
devil, but was much concerned about the question of the
improvement of the clergy and the maintenance of their
revenues, and took special trouble to keep up the church
in his village.
On the woman question he was on the side of the
extreme advocates of complete liberty for women, and
especially their right to labor. But he lived with his wife
on such terms that their affectionate childless home life
was the admiration of everyone, and arranged his wife’s
life so that she did nothing and could do nothing but share
her husband’s efforts that her time should pass as happily
and as agreeably as possible.
If it had not been a characteristic of Levin’s to put the
most favorable interpretation on people, Sviazhsky’s
character would have presented no doubt or difficulty to
him: he would have said to himself, ‘a fool or a knave,’
and everything would have seemed clear. But he could
not say ‘a fool,’ because Sviazhsky was unmistakably
clever, and moreover, a highly cultivated man, who was

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