Part Six: Chapter 29

by Leo Tolstoy

　　The narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refresh~ments, was full of noblemen. The excitement grew more intense,and every face betrayed some uneasiness. The excitement wasspecially keen for the leaders of each party, who knew everydetail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generalsorganizing the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank andfile before an engagement, though they were getting ready for thefight, sought for other distractions in the interval. Some werelunching, standing at the bar, or sitting at the table; otherswere walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, andtalking with friends whom they had not seen for a long while.

　　Levin did not care to eat, and he was not smoking; he did notwant to join his own friends, that is Sergey Ivanovitch, StepanArkadyevitch, Sviazhsky and the rest, because Vronsky in hisequerry's uniform was standing with them in eager conversation.Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day,and he had studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. Hewent to the window and sat down, scanning the groups, andlistening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed,especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious,and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little manwith mumbling lips wearing a naval uniform, sitting beside him,had no interest in it and nothing to do.

　　"He's such a blackguard! I have told him so, but it makes nodifference. Only think of it! He couldn't collect it in threeyears!" he heard vigorously uttered by a round-shouldered, short,country gentleman, who had pomaded hair hanging on hisembroidered collar, and new boots obviously put on for theoccasion, with heels that tapped energetically as he spoke.Casting a displeased glance at Levin, this gentleman sharplyturned his back.

　　"Yes, it's a dirty business, there's no denying," a smallgentleman assented in a high voice.

　　Next, a whole crowd of country gentlemen, surrounding a stoutgeneral, hurriedly came near Levin. These persons wereunmistakably seeking a place where they could talk without beingoverheard.

　　"How dare he say I had his breeches stolen! Pawned them fordrink, I expect. Damn the fellow, prince indeed! He'd betternot say it, the beast!"

　　"But excuse me! They take their stand on the act," was beingsaid in another group; "the wife must be registered as noble."

　　"Oh, damn your acts! I speak from my heart. We're allgentlemen, aren't we? Above suspicion."

　　"Shall we go on, your excellency, fine champagne?"

　　Another group was following a nobleman, who was shoutingsomething in a loud voice; it was one of the three intoxicatedgentlemen.

　　"I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let for a fair rent, forshe can never save a profit," he heard a pleasant voice say. Thespeaker was a country gentleman with gray whiskers, wearing theregimental uniform of an old general staff-officer. It was thevery landowner Levin had met at Sviazhsky's. He knew him atonce. The landowner too stared at Levin, and they exchangedgreetings."Very glad to see you! To be sure! I remember you very well.Last year at our district marshal, Nikolay Ivanovitch's."

　　"Well, and how is your land doing?" asked Levin.

　　"Oh, still just the same, always at a loss," the landowneranswered with a resigned smile, but with an expression ofserenity and conviction that so it must be. "And how do you cometo be in our province?" he asked. "Come to take part in our coupd'etat?" he said, confidently pronouncing the French words with abad accent. "All Russia's here--gentlemen of the bedchamber,and everything short of the ministry." He pointed to theimposing figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch in white trousers and hiscourt uniform, walking by with a general.

　　"I ought to own that I don't very well understand the drift ofthe provincial elections," said Levin.

　　The landowner looked at him.

　　"Why, what is there to understand? There's no meaning in it atall. It's a decaying institution that goes on running only bythe force of inertia. Just look, the very uniforms tell you thatit's an assembly of justices of the peace, permanent members ofthe court, and so on, but not of noblemen."

　　"Then why do you come?" asked Levin.

　　"From habit, nothing else. Then, too, one must keep upconnections. It's a moral obligation of a sort. And then, totell the truth, there's one's own interests. My son-in-law wantsto stand as a permanent member; they're not rich people, and hemust be brought forward. These gentlemen, now, what do they comefor?" he said, pointing to the malignant gentleman, who wastalking at the high table.

　　"That's the new generation of nobility."

　　"New it may be, but nobility it isn't. They're proprietors of asort, but we're the landowners. As noblemen, they're cuttingtheir own throats."

　　"But you say it's an institution that's served its time."

　　"That it may be, but still it ought to be treated a little morerespectfully. Snetkov, now...We may be of use, or we may not,but we're the growth of a thousand years. If we're laying out agarden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you'vea tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot.... Old andgnarled it may be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow tomake room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to takeadvantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year," hesaid cautiously, and he immediately changed the conversation."Well, and how is your land doing?"

　　"Oh, not very well. I make five per cent."

　　"Yes, but you don't reckon your own work. Aren't you worthsomething too? I'll tell you my own case. Before I took toseeing after the land, I had a salary of three hundred poundsfrom the service. Now I do more work than I did in the service,and like you I get five per cent on the land, and thank God forthat. But one's work is thrown in for nothing."

　　"Then why do you do it, if it's a clear loss?"

　　"Oh, well, one does it! What would you have? It's habit, andone knows it's how it should be. And what's more," the landownerwent on, leaning his elbows on the window and chatting on, "myson, I must tell you, has no taste for it. There's no doubthe'll be a scientific man. So there'll be no one to keep it up.And yet one does it. Here this year I've planted an orchard."

　　"Yes, yes," said Levin, "that's perfectly true. I always feelthere's no real balance of gain in my work on the land, and yetone does it.... It's a sort of duty one feels to the land."

　　"But I tell you what," the landowner pursued; "a neighbor ofmine, a merchant, was at my place. We walked about the fieldsand the garden. 'No,' said he, 'Stepan Vassilievitch,everything's well looked after, but your garden's neglected.'But, as a fact, it's well kept up. 'To my thinking, I'd cut downthat lime-tree. Here you've thousands of limes, and each wouldmake two good bundles of bark. And nowadays that bark's worthsomething. I'd cut down the lot.' "

　　"And with what he made he'd increase his stock, or buy some landfor a trifle, and let it out in lots to the peasants," Levinadded, smiling. He had evidently more than once come acrossthose commercial calculations. "And he'd make his fortune. Butyou and I must thank God if we keep what we've got and leave itto our children."

　　"You're married, I've heard?" said the landowner.

　　"Yes," Levin answered, with proud satisfaction. "Yes, it'srather strange," he went on. "So we live without makinganything, as though we were ancient vestals set to keep in afire."

　　The landowner chuckled under his white mustaches.

　　"There are some among us, too, like our friend NikolayIvanovitch, or Count Vronsky, that's settled here lately, who tryto carry on their husbandry as though it were a factory; but sofar it leads to nothing but making away with capital on it."

　　"But why is it we don't do like the merchants? Why don't we cutdown our parks for timber?" said Levin, returning to a thoughtthat had struck him.

　　"Why, as you said, to keep the fire in. Besides that's not workfor a nobleman. And our work as noblemen isn't done here at theelections, but yonder, each in our corner. There's a classinstinct, too, of what one ought and oughtn't to do. There's thepeasants, too, I wonder at them sometimes; any good peasant triesto take all the land he can. However bad the land is, he'll workit. Without a return too. At a simple loss."

　　"Just as we do," said Levin. "Very, very glad to have met you,"he added, seeing Sviazhsky approaching him.

　　"And here we've met for the first time since we met at yourplace," said the landowner to Sviazhsky, "and we've had a goodtalk too."

　　"Well, have you been attacking the new order of things?" saidSviazhsky with a smile.

　　"That we're bound to do."

　　"You've relieved your feelings?"