Page 822 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

‘Yes, yes!’ he said, ‘it’s very possible you’re right. But
I’m glad you’re in good spirits, and are hunting bears, and
working, and interested. Shtcherbatsky told me another
story—he met you—that you were in such a depressed

state, talking of nothing but death...’
‘Well, what of it? I’ve not given up thinking of death,’
said Levin. ‘It’s true that it’s high time I was dead; and that
all this is nonsense. It’s the truth I’m telling you. I do
value my idea and my work awfully; but in reality only
consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck
of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And for
us to suppose we can have something great—ideas,
work—it’s all dust and ashes.’
‘But all that’s as old as the hills, my boy!’
‘It is old; but do you know, when you grasp this fully,
then somehow everything becomes of no consequence.
When you understand that you will die tomorrow, if not
today, and nothing will be left, then everything is so
unimportant! And I consider my idea very important, but
it turns out really to be as unimportant too, even if it were
carried out, as doing for that bear. So one goes on living,
amusing oneself with hunting, with work—anything so as
not to think of death!’

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