Page 756 - ANNA KARENINA
P. 756

Anna Karenina


                                     Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the
                                  darkness.
                                     The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come
                                  back and brought part of the money for the wheat. An

                                  agreement had been made with the old servant, and on the
                                  road the bailiff had learned that everywhere the corn was
                                  still standing in the fields, so that his one hundred and
                                  sixty shocks that had not been carried were nothing in
                                  comparison with the losses of others.
                                     After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an
                                  easy chair with a book, and  as he read he went on
                                  thinking of the journey before him in connection with his
                                  book. Today all the significance of his book rose before
                                  him with special distinctness, and whole periods ranged
                                  themselves in his mind in illustration of his theories. ‘I
                                  must write that down,’ he thought. ‘That ought to form a
                                  brief introduction, which I thought unnecessary before.’
                                  He got up to go to his writing table, and Laska, lying at his
                                  feet, got up too, stretching and looking at him as though
                                  to inquire where to go. But he had not time to write it
                                  down, for the head peasants had come round, and Levin
                                  went out into the hall to them.
                                     After his levee, that is to say, giving directions about
                                  the labors of the next day, and seeing all the peasants who



                                                         755 of 1759
   751   752   753   754   755   756   757   758   759   760   761