`But tomorrow it'll be your turn to be tried; would it have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old criminal court?'
`I'm not going to be tried. I shan't murder anybody, and I've no need of it. Well, I tell you what,' he went on, flying off again to a subject quite beside the point, `our district self-government and all the rest of it - it's just like the birch saplings we stick in the ground, as we would do it on Trinity Day, to look like a copse which has grown up of itself in Europe, and I can't gush over these birch saplings and believe in them.'
Sergei Ivanovich merely shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his wonder how the birch saplings had come into their argument at that point, though he did really understand at once what his brother meant.
`Excuse me, but you know one really can't argue in that way,'
he observed.
But Konstantin Levin wanted to justify himself for the failing, of which he was conscious, of a lack of zeal for the public welfare, and he went on.
`I imagine,' Konstantin said, `that no sort of activity is likely to be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest - that's a universal principle, a philosophical principle,' he said, repeating the word `philosophical'
with determination, as though wishing to show that he had as much right as anyone else to talk of philosophy.
Sergei Ivanovich smiled. `He too has a philosophy of his own at the service of his natural tendencies,' he thought.
`Come, you'd better let philosophy alone,' he said. `The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists precisely in finding that indispensable connection which exists between individual and social interests.
But that's not to the point; what is to the point is a correction I must make in your comparison. The birches are not simply stuck in, but some are sown and some are planted, and one must deal carefully with them. It's only those peoples that have an intuitive sense of what's of importance and significance in their institutions, and know how to value them, who have a future before them - it's only those peoples that one can truly call historical.'
And Sergei Ivanovich carried the subject into the regions of philosophical history where Konstantin Levin could not follow him, and showed him all the incorrectness of his outlook.
`As for your dislike of it - excuse my saying so - that's simply our Russian sloth and old serfowners' ways, and I'm convinced that in you it's a temporary error and will pass.'
Konstantin was silent. He felt himself vanquished on all sides, but he felt at the same time that what he wanted to say was unintelligible to his brother. Only he could not make up his mind whether it was unintelligible because he was not capable of expressing his meaning clearly, or because his brother would not or could not understand him. But he did not pursue the speculation, and, without replying, he fell to musing on a quite different and personal matter.
Sergei Ivanovich wound up the last line, unhitched the horse, and they drove off.
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TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 3, Chapter 04[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 4 The personal matter that absorbed Levin during his conversation with his brother was this. Once, the year previous, he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made very angry by the bailiff he had had recourse to his favorite means for regaining his temper - he had taken a scythe from a peasant and begun mowing.
He liked the work so much that he had several times tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of the meadow in front of his house, and this year, ever since the early spring, he had cherished a plan for mowing for whole days together with the peasants. Ever since his brother's arrival he had been in doubt as to whether to mow or not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long, and he was afraid his brother would laugh at him about it. But as he drove into the meadow, and recalled the sensations of mowing, he came near deciding that he would go mowing.
After the irritating discussion with his brother, he pondered over this intention again.
`I must have physical exercise, or my temper'll certainly be ruined,'
he thought, and he determined he would go mowing, however awkward he might feel about it with his brother or the peasants.
Toward evening Konstantin Levin went to his countinghouse, gave directions as to the work to be done, and sent about the village to summon the mowers for the morrow, to cut the hay in Kalinov meadow, the largest and best of his grasslands.
`And send my scythe, please, to Tit, for him to set it, and bring it round tomorrow. I may do some mowing myself, too,' he said, trying not to be embarrassed.
The bailiff smiled and said:
`Yes, sir.'
At tea the same evening Levin said to his brother too.
`I fancy the fine weather will last,' said he. `Tomorrow I shall start mowing.'
`I'm so fond of that form of field labor,' said Sergei Ivanovich.
`I'm awfully fond of it. I sometimes mow myself with the peasants, and tomorrow I want to try mowing the whole day.'
Sergei Ivanovich lifted his head, and looked with curiosity at his brother.
`How do you mean? Just like one of the peasants, all day long?'
`Yes, it's very pleasant,' said Levin.
`It's splendid as exercise, only you'll hardly be able to stand it,' said Sergei Ivanovich, without a shade of irony.
`I've tried it. It's hard work at first, but you get into it.
I dare say I shall manage to keep it up....'
`Oh, so that's it! But tell me, how do the peasants look at it?
I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their master's being such a queer fish?'
`No, I don't think so; but it's so delightful, and at the same time such hard work, that one has no time to think about it.'
`But how will you do about dining with them? To send you a bottle of Lafitte and roast turkey out there would be a little awkward.'
`No, I'll simply come home at the time of their noonday rest.'