Page 725 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

cause to regret it. At the works, for instance, they
pocketed the advance-money and made off. What did the
justice do? Why, acquitted them. Nothing keeps them in
order but their own communal court and their village

elder. He’ll flog them in the good old style! But for that
there’d be nothing for it but to give it all up and run
away.’
Obviously the landowner was chaffing Sviazhsky, who,
far from resenting it, was apparently amused by it.
‘But you see we manage our land without such
extreme measures,’ said he, smiling: ‘Levin and I and this
gentleman.’
He indicated the other landowner.
‘Yes, the thing’s done at Mihail Petrovitch’s, but ask
him how it’s done. Do you call that a rational system?’ said
the landowner, obviously rather proud of the word
‘rational.’
‘My system’s very simple,’ said Mihail Petrovitch,
‘thank God. All my management rests on getting the
money ready for the autumn taxes, and the peasants come
to me, ‘Father, master, help us!’ Well, the peasants are all
one’s neighbors; one feels for them. So one advances them
a third, but one says: ‘Remember, lads, I have helped you,
and you must help me when I need it—whether it’s the

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