Page 743 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

peasant’s land half-way here. Your and our general
dissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to
blame or the laborers. We have gone our way—the
European way—a long while, without asking ourselves

about the qualities of our labor force. Let us try to look
upon the labor force not as an abstract force, but as the
Russian peasant with his instincts, and we shall arrange our
system of culture in accordance with that. Imagine, I
ought to have said to him, that you have the same system
as the old peasant has, that you have found means of
making your laborers take an interest in the success of the
work, and have found the happy mean in the way of
improvements which they will admit, and you will,
without exhausting the soil, get twice or three times the
yield you got before. Divide it in halves, give half as the
share of labor, the surplus left you will be greater, and the
share of labor will be greater too. And to do this one must
lower the standard of husbandry and interest the laborers
in its success. How to do this?—that’s a matter of detail;
but undoubtedly it can be done.’
This idea threw Levin into a great excitement. He did
not sleep half the night, thinking over in detail the putting
of his idea into practice. He had not intended to go away
next day, but he now determined to go home early in the

742 of 1759