Page 877 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

before, struck him as a very intelligent, excellent, and,
above all, good-hearted man.
‘Well, Yegor, it’s hard work not sleeping, isn’t it?’
‘One’s got to put up with it! It’s part of our work, you

see. In a gentleman’s house it’s easier; but then here one
makes more.’
It appeared that Yegor had a family, three boys and a
daughter, a sempstress, whom he wanted to marry to a
cashier in a saddler’s shop.
Levin, on hearing this, informed Yegor that, in his
opinion, in marriage the great thing was love, and that
with love one would always be happy, for happiness rests
only on oneself. Yegor listened attentively, and obviously
quite took in Levin’s idea, but by way of assent to it he
enunciated, greatly to Levin’s surprise, the observation that
when he had lived with good masters he had always been
satisfied with his masters, and now was perfectly satisfied
with his employer, though he was a Frenchman.
‘Wonderfully good-hearted fellow!’ thought Levin.
‘Well, but you yourself, Yegor, when you got married,
did you love your wife?’
‘Ay! and why not?’ responded Yegor.
And Levin saw that Yegor too was in an excited state
and intending to express all his most heartfelt emotions.

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