Page 742 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

whose name is legion, he guided public opinion by ideas
he did not share; that irascible country gentleman,
perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been
worried into by life, but wrong in his exasperation against

a whole class, and that the best class in Russia; his own
dissatisfaction with the work he had been doing, and the
vague hope of finding a remedy for all this—all was
blended in a sense of inward turmoil, and anticipation of
some solution near at hand.
Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring
mattress that yielded unexpectedly at every movement of
his arm or his leg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long
while. Not one conversation with Sviazhsky, though he
had said a great deal that was clever, had interested Levin;
but the conclusions of the irascible landowner required
consideration. Levin could not help recalling every word
he had said, and in imagination amending his own replies.
‘Yes, I ought to have said to him: You say that our
husbandry does not answer because the peasant hates
improvements, and that they must be forced on him by
authority. If no system of husbandry answered at all
without these improvements, you would be quite right.
But the only system that does answer is where laborer is
working in accordance with his habits, just as on the old

741 of 1759