That was one disagreeable thing. The other slightly disagreeable fact was that the new head of his board, like all new heads, already had the reputation of a terrible person, who got up at six o'clock in the morning, worked like a horse, and insisted on his subordinates working in the same way. Moreover, this new head had the further reputation of being a bear in his manners, and was, according to all reports, a man of a class in all respects the opposite of that to which his predecessor had belonged, and to which Stepan Arkadyevich had hitherto belonged himself. On the previous day Stepan Arkadyevich had appeared at the office in a uniform, and the new chief had been very affable and had talked to him as to an acquaintance.
Consequently Stepan Arkadyevich deemed it his duty to call upon him in his nonofficial dress. The thought that the new chief might not give him a warm reception was the other unpleasant thing. But Stepan Arkadyevich instinctively felt that everything would come round all right. `They're all human, all men, like us poor sinners; why be nasty and quarrelsome?'
he thought as he went into the hotel.
`Good day, Vassilii,' he said, walking into the corridor with his hat cocked on one side, and addressing a footman he knew; `why, you've let your whiskers grow! Levin - number seven, eh? Take me up, please. And find out whether Count Anychkin' (this was the new head) `is receiving.'
`Yes, sir,' Vassilii responded, smiling. `You've not been to see us for a long while.'
`I was here yesterday, but at the other entrance. Is this number seven?'
Levin was standing with a peasant from Tver in the middle of the room, measuring a fresh bearskin, when Stepan Arkadyevich came in.
`What! You killed him?' cried Stepan Arkadyevich. `Well done!
A she-bear? How are you, Arkhip!'
He shook hands with the peasant and sat down on a chair, without taking off his coat and hat.
`Come, take off your coat and stay a little,' said Levin, taking his hat.
`No, I haven't time; I've only looked in for just a second,' answered Stepan Arkadyevich. He threw open his fur coat, but afterward did take it off, and sat on for a whole hour, talking to Levin about hunting and the most intimate subjects. `Come, tell me, please, what you did abroad.
Where have you been?' said Stepan Arkadyevich, when the peasant had gone.
`Oh, I stayed in Germany, in Prussia, in France, and in England - not in the capitals, but in the manufacturing towns - and saw a great deal that was new to me. And I'm glad I went.'
`Yes, I knew your idea of the solution of the labor question.'
`Not a bit: in Russia there can be no labor question. In Russia the question is that of the relation of the working people to the land;though the question exists there too - but there it's a matter of repairing what's been ruined, while with us...'
Stepan Arkadyevich listened attentively to Levin.
`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.
Shcherbatsky 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 really, do consider this: all this world of ours is nothing but a speck of mildew, which has grown up on a tiny planet. And yet we think that something great is possible to us - ideas, work! Grains of sand - that's all they are.'
`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 just as unimportant, even if it were carried out, as outwitting that she-bear. So one goes on living, amusing oneself with hunting, with work - anything, so as not to think of death!'
Stepan Arkadyevich smiled a subtle and affectionate smile as he listened to Levin.
`Well, of course! Here you've come round to my point. Do you remember you attacked me for seeking enjoyment in life?
``Don't be, O moralist, severe...''
`No; all the same, what's fine in life is...' Levin hesitated.
`Oh! I don't know. All I know is that we shall soon be dead.'
`Why so soon?'
`And I know there's less charm in life, when one thinks of death - but there's more peace.'
`On the contrary, the finish is always the best. But I must be going,' said Stepan Arkadyevich, getting up for the tenth time.
`Oh, no, stay a bit!' said Levin, detaining him. `Now, when shall we see each other again? I'm going tomorrow.'
`I'm a fine fellow! Why, that's just what I came for! You simply must come to dinner with us today. Your brother's coming, and Karenin, my brother-in-law.'
`You don't mean to say he's here?' said Levin, and he wanted to inquire about Kitty. He had heard at the beginning of the winter that she was at Peterburg with her sister, the wife of the diplomat, and he did not know whether she had come back or not; but he changed his mind and did not ask. `Whether she's coming or not, I don't care,' he said to himself.
`So you'll come?'
`Of course.'
`At five o'clock, then, and wear a frock coat.'
And Stepan Arkadyevich got up and went down below to the new head of his department. Instinct had not misled Stepan Arkadyevich. The terrible new head turned out to be an extremely amenable person, and Stepan Arkadyevich lunched with him and stayed on, so that it was past three o'clock before he got to Alexei Alexandrovich.