Page 726 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

sowing of the oats, or the haycutting, or the harvest’; and
well, one agrees, so much for each taxpayer—though
there are dishonest ones among them too, it’s true.’
Levin, who had long been familiar with these

patriarchal methods, exchanged glances with Sviazhsky
and interrupted Mihail Petrovitch, turning again to the
gentleman with the gray whiskers.
‘Then what do you think?’ he asked; ‘what system is
one to adopt nowadays?’
‘Why, manage like Mihail Petrovitch, or let the land
for half the crop or for rent to the peasants; that one can
do—only that’s just how the general prosperity of the
country is being ruined. Where the land with serf-labor
and good management gave a yield of nine to one, on the
half-crop system it yields three to one. Russia has been
ruined by the emancipation!’
Sviazhsky looked with smiling eyes at Levin, and even
made a faint gesture of irony to him; but Levin did not
think the landowner’s words absurd, he understood them
better than he did Sviazhsky. A great deal more of what
the gentleman with the gray whiskers said to show in what
way Russia was ruined by the emancipation struck him
indeed as very true, new to him, and quite incontestable.
The landowner unmistakably spoke his own individual

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