We were talking yesterday with mamma and Arsenii' (this was her sister's husband, Lvov), `and we determined to send you with him to talk to Stiva.
It's really unbearable. One can't speak to papa about it.... But if you and he...'
`Why, what can we do?' said Levin.
`You'll be at Arsenii's, anyway; talk to him - he will tell you what we decided.'
`Oh, I agree to everything Arsenii thinks beforehand. I'll go and see him. By the way, if I do go to the concert, I'll go with Natalie.
Well, good-by.'
On the steps Levin was stopped by his old servant Kouzma, who had been with him before his marriage, and now looked after their household in town.
`Little Adonis' (that was the left shaft horse brought up from the country) `has been shod anew, but she is still lame,' he said. `What does Your Honor wish to be done?'
During the first part of their stay in Moscow, Levin had used his own horses brought up from the country. He had tried to arrange this part of their expenses in the best and cheapest way possible; but it appeared that their own horses came dearer than hired horses, and they still hired additional horses.
`Send for the veterinary - there may be a bruise.'
`And for Katerina Alexandrovna?' asked Kouzma.
Levin was not by now struck as he had been at first by the fact that to get in Moscow from the Vozdvizhenka to the Ssivtzev-Vrazhek he had to have two powerful horses put into a heavy carriage, to take the carriage a quarter of a versta through the snowy mush and to keep it standing there four hours, paying five roubles every time.
Now it seemed quite natural.
`Hire a pair for our carriage from the livery stable,' said he.
`Yes, sir.'
And so, simply and easily, thanks to the facilities of town life, Levin settled a question which, in the country, would have called for so much personal trouble and exertion, and, going out on the steps, he called a sleigh, sat down, and drove to the Nikitskaia. On the way he thought no more of money, but mused on the introduction that awaited him to the Peterburg savant, a writer on sociology, and what he would say to him about his book.
Only during the first days of his stay in Moscow Levin had been struck by the expenditure, strange to one living in the country, unproductive but inevitable, that was expected of him on every side. But by now he had grown used to it. That had happened to him in this matter which is said to happen to drunkards - the first glass sticks in the throat, the second flies down like a hawk, but after the third they're like tiny little birds.
When Levin had changed his first hundred-rouble note to pay for liveries for his footman and hall porter he could not help reflecting that these liveries were of no use to anyone - but they were indubitably necessary, to judge by the amazement of the Princess and Kitty when he suggested that they might do without liveries - that these liveries would cost the wages of two laborers for the summer - that is, would pay for about three hundred working days from Easter to the fast of Advent, and each a day of hard work from early morning to late evening - and that hundred-rouble note did stick in his throat. But the next note, changed to pay for providing a dinner for their relations, that cost twenty-eight roubles, though it did excite in Levin the reflection that twenty-eight roubles meant nine chetverts of oats, which men would with groans and sweat have reaped and bound and threshed and winnowed and sifted and sown - this next one he parted with more easily. And now the notes he changed no longer aroused such reflections, and they flew off like little birds. Whether the labor devoted to obtaining the money corresponded to the pleasure given by what was bought with it, was a consideration he had long ago dismissed. His business calculation that there was a certain price below which he could not sell certain grain was forgotten too. The rye, for the price of which he had so long held out, had been sold for fifty kopecks a chetvert cheaper than it had been fetching a month ago. Even the consideration that with such an expenditure he could not go on living for a year without debt, even that had no force. Only one thing was essential: to have money in the bank, without inquiring where it came from, so as to know that one had the wherewithal to buy meat for tomorrow. And this condition had hitherto been fulfilled; he had always had the money in the bank. But now the money in the bank had gone, and he could not quite tell where to get the next installment. And this it was which, at the moment when Kitty had mentioned money, had disturbed him; but he had no time to think about it. He drove off, thinking of Katavassov and the meeting with Metrov which was before him.
[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]
TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 7, Chapter 03[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 3 Levin had on this visit to town seen a great deal of his old friend at the university, Professor Katavassov, whom he had not seen since his marriage.
He liked in Katavassov the clearness and simplicity of his conception of life. Levin thought that the clearness of Katavassov's conception of life was due to the poverty of his nature; Katavassov thought that the disconnectedness of Levin's ideas was due to his lack of intellectual discipline; but Levin enjoyed Katavassov's clearness, and Katavassov enjoyed the abundance of Levin's untrained ideas, and they liked to meet and to dispute.
Levin had read to Katavassov some parts of his book, and he had liked them. On the previous day Katavassov had met Levin at a public lecture and told him that the celebrated Metrov, whose article Levin had so much liked, was in Moscow, that he had been much interested by what Katavassov had told him about Levin's work, and that he was coming to see him tomorrow at eleven, and would be very glad to make Levin's acquaintance.
`You're positively a reformed character, my dear, I'm glad to see,' said Katavassov, meeting Levin in the little drawing room. `I heard the bell and thought: Impossible! It can't be he at the exact time!...