Page 758 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

her and did not agree with her comments. But on this
occasion she entirely misinterpreted what he had said.
‘Of one’s soul’s salvation we all know and must think
before all else,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Parfen Denisitch

now, for all he was no scholar, he died a death that God
grant every one of us the like,’ she said, referring to a
servant who had died recently. ‘Took the sacrament and
all.’
‘That’s not what I mean,’ said he. ‘I mean that I’m
acting for my own advantage. It’s all the better for me if
the peasants do their work better.’
‘Well, whatever you do, if he’s a lazy good-for-nought,
everything’ll be at sixes and sevens. If he has a conscience,
he’ll work, and if not, there’s no doing anything.’
‘Oh, come, you say yourself Ivan has begun looking
after the cattle better.’
‘All I say is,’ answered Agafea Mihalovna, evidently not
speaking at random, but in strict sequence of idea, ‘that
you ought to get married, that’s what I say.’
Agafea Mihalovna’s allusion to the very subject he had
only just been thinking about, hurt and stung him. Levin
scowled, and without answering her, he sat down again to
his work, repeating to himself all that he had been
thinking of the real significance of that work. Only at

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