Page 737 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

On the writing table was a stand of drawers marked with
gold lettering, and full of papers of various sorts.
Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a
rocking-chair.

‘What are you looking at there?’ he said to Levin, who
was standing at the round table looking through the
reviews.
‘Oh, yes, there’s a very interesting article here,’ said
Sviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand. ‘It
appears,’ he went on, with eager interest, ‘that Friedrich
was not, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the
partition of Poland. It is proved..’
And with his characteristic clearness, he summed up
those new, very important, and interesting revelations.
Although Levin was engrossed at the moment by his ideas
about the problem of the land, he wondered, as he heard
Sviazhsky: ‘What is there inside of him? And why, why is
he interested in the partition of Poland?’ When Sviazhsky
had finished, Levin could not help asking: ‘Well, and what
then?’ But there was nothing to follow. It was simply
interesting that it had been proved to be so and so. But
Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explain
why it was interesting to him.

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