Page 731 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

eyes he detected that fleeting expression of alarm which he
had noticed whenever he had tried to penetrate beyond
the outer chambers of Sviazhsky’s mind.
Moreover, this question on Levin’s part was not quite

in good faith. Madame Sviazhskaya had just told him at tea
that they had that summer invited a Gemman expert in
bookkeeping from Moscow, who for a consideration of
five hundred roubles had investigated the management of
their property, and found that it was costing them a loss of
three thousand odd roubles. She did not remember the
precise sum, but it appeared that the Gemman had worked
it out to the fraction of a farthing.
The gray-whiskered landowner smiled at the mention
of the profits of Sviazhsky’s famling, obviously aware how
much gain his neighbor and marshal was likely to be
making.
‘Possibly it does not pay,’ answered Sviazhsky. ‘That
merely proves either that I’m a bad manager, or that I’ve
sunk my capital for the increase of my rents.’
‘Oh, rent!’ Levin cried with horror. ‘Rent there may
be in Europe, where land has been improved by the labor
put into it, but with us all the land is deteriorating from
the labor put into it—in other words they’re working it
out; so there’s no question of rent.’

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