by Leo Tolstoy
'Absolutely right!' responded Vasenka Veslovsky. 'Absolutely! Of course, Oblonsky does it out of bonhomie, and the others say, "Well, if Oblonsky goes there ..."'
'Not a bit of it,' Levin sensed Oblonsky's smile as he said it. 'I simply don't consider him more dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman. He and they both make money by the same hard work and intelligence.'
'Yes, but where's the hard work? Is it work to get a concession and resell it?'
'Of course it's work. It's work in this sense, that if it weren't for him and others like him, there wouldn't be any railways.'
'But it's not the same as the work of a muzhik or a scholar.'
'Granted, but it is work in the sense that it produces a result - railways. But then you think railways are useless.'
'No, that's another question. I'm prepared to admit they're useful. But any acquisition that doesn't correspond to the labour expended is dishonest.'
'But who defines the correspondence?'
'Acquisition by dishonest means, by cunning,' said Levin, feeling that he was unable to draw a clear line between honest and dishonest, 'like the acquisitions of banks,' he went on. 'This evil, the acquisition of huge fortunes without work, as it used to be with tax farming, has merely changed its form. Le roi est mort, vive le roi!* Tax farming was no sooner abolished than railways and banks appeared: the same gain without work.'
'Yes, all that may be true and clever ... Lie down, Krak!' Stepan Arkadyich called to the dog, who was scratching and churning up all the hay. He was obviously convinced of the justice of his theme, and therefore spoke calmly and unhurriedly. 'But you haven't drawn the line between honest and dishonest work. That I receive a higher salary than my chief clerk, though he knows the business better than I do - is that dishonest?'
* The king is dead, long live the king.
'I don't know.'
'Well, then I'll tell you: that you get, say, a surplus of five thousand for your farm work, while the muzhik here, our host, however hard he works, will get no more than fifty roubles, is as dishonest as my getting more than my chief clerk, and Malthus getting more than a railway engineer. On the other hand, I see some hostile, absolutely unfounded attitude of society towards those people, and it seems to me there's envy here ...'
'No, that's unjust,' said Veslovsky. 'There can be no envy, and there's something unclean in this whole business.'
'No, excuse me,' Levin went on. 'You say it's unjust that I get five thousand and a muzhik gets fifty roubles. That's true, it is unjust, and I feel it, but...'
'Indeed it is. Why do we eat, drink, hunt, do nothing, while he's eternally, eternally working?' said Vasenka, apparently thinking about it clearly for the first time in his life, and therefore quite sincerely.
'Yes, you feel it, and yet you don't give him your property,' said Stepan Arkadyich, as if deliberately provoking Levin.
Lately some sort of secret antagonism had been established between the two brothers-in-law: as if a rivalry had arisen between them, since they had married two sisters, as to whose life was set up better, and that antagonism now showed itself in the conversation, which was beginning to acquire a personal nuance.
'I don't give it to him because no one demands it of me, and I couldn't if I wanted to,' replied Levin, 'and there's nobody to give it to.'
'Give it to this muzhik; he won't refuse.'
'Yes, but how am I going to give it to him? Shall I go and draw up a deed of purchase with him?'
'I don't know, but if you're convinced that you have no right...'
'I'm not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel that I don't have the right to give it up, that I have responsibilities to the land and to my family.'
'No, excuse me, but if you think this inequality is unjust, why don't you act that way?...'
'I do act, only negatively, in the sense that I'm not going to try to increase the difference of situation that exists between him and me.'
'No, excuse me now: that is a paradox.'
'Yes, it's a somewhat sophistic explanation,' Veslovsky confirmed.
'Ah, it's our host!' he said to the muzhik, who opened the creaking barn door and came in. 'You're not asleep yet?'
'No, what sleep! I thought you gentlemen were asleep, but then I heard you talking. I need to get a hook here. He won't bite?' he added, stepping cautiously with bare feet.
'And where are you going to sleep?'
'We're going to night pasture.'
'Ah, what a night!' said Veslovsky, looking at the end of the cottage and the unharnessed cart, visible in the faint light of the afterglow, through the big frame of the now open door. 'Listen, those are women's voices singing, and not badly at that. Who's singing, my good man?'
'Those are farm girls not far from here.'
'Let's take a stroll! We're not going to fall asleep anyway. Come on, Oblonsky!'
'If only it was possible to stay lying down and still go,' Oblonsky answered, stretching. 'It's wonderful to be lying down.'
'Then I'll go by myself,' said Veslovsky, getting up quickly and putting his boots on. 'Goodbye, gentlemen. If it's fun, I'll call you. You treated me to game, and I won't forget you.'
'Isn't he a nice fellow?' said Oblonsky, when Veslovsky was gone and the muzhik had closed the door behind him.
'Yes, nice,' said Levin, still thinking about the subject of their conversation. It seemed to him that he had expressed his thoughts and feelings as clearly as he could, and yet the two of them, sincere and not stupid people, had told him in one voice that he was comforting himself with sophisms. That puzzled him.
'There it is, my friend. It has to be one or the other: either admit that the present social arrangement is just and then defend your own rights, or admit that you enjoy certain unjust advantages, as I do, and enjoy them with pleasure.'
'No, if it was unjust, you wouldn't be able to enjoy those benefits with pleasure, at least I wouldn't be able to. For me the main thing is to feel that I'm not at fault.'
'But why not go, in fact?' said Stepan Arkadyich, obviously weary from the strain of thinking. 'We won't sleep anyway. Really, let's go!'
Levin did not reply. The remark he had made in their conversation, about acting justly only in the negative sense, preoccupied him. 'Can one be just only negatively?' he asked himself.
'How strong the fresh hay smells, though!' Stepan Arkadyich said, getting up. 'I wouldn't sleep for anything. Vasenka's on to something there. Can you hear him laughing and talking? Why not go? Come on!'
'No, I won't go,' replied Levin.
'Can that also be on principle?' Stepan Arkadyich said with a smile, searching for his cap in the dark.
'Not on principle, but why should I go?'
'You know, you're going to make trouble for yourself,' said Stepan Arkadyich, finding his cap and standing up.
'Why?'
'Don't I see how you've set things up with your wife? I heard how it's a question of the first importance with you whether or not you go hunting for two days. That's all well and good as an idyll, but it's not enough for a whole lifetime. A man must be independent, he has his manly interests. A man must be masculine,' Oblonsky said, opening the door.
'Meaning what? To go courting farm girls?' asked Levin.
'Why not, if it's fun? Ca ne tire pas a consequence.* My wife will be none the worse for it, and I'll have fun. The main thing is to preserve the sanctity of the home. Nothing like that in the home. But don't tie your own hands.'
'Maybe,' Levin said drily and turned over on his side. 'Tomorrow we must get an early start, and I'm not going to wake anybody up, I'll just set out at dawn.'
'Messieurs, venez vite!'* said Veslovsky, coming in again. 'Charmante! I discovered her. Charmante, a perfect Gretchen,[4] and we've already become acquainted. The prettiest little thing, really!' he went on with an approving look, as if she had been made pretty especially for him and he was pleased with the one who had done it for him.
Levin pretended to be aslee
p, but Oblonsky, having put on his shoes and lit a cigar, left the barn, and their voices soon died away.
Levin could not fall asleep for a long time. He heard his horses munching hay, then the host and his older son getting ready and going out to the night pasture; then he heard the soldier settling down to sleep at the other end of the barn with his nephew, the host's smaller son; he
* It won't lead to anything.
* Gentlemen, come quickly.
heard the boy telling his uncle in a thin little voice his impression of the dogs, who seemed huge and fearsome to him; then the boy asking him what the dogs would catch, and the soldier telling him in a hoarse and sleepy voice that the hunters would go to the marsh tomorrow and shoot off their guns, and after that, to have done with the boy's questions, he said: 'Sleep, Vaska, sleep or else!' and soon he was snoring, and everything quieted down; the only sounds were the neighing of horses and the croaking of snipe. 'Can it be only negative?' he repeated to himself. 'Well, and what then? It's not my fault.' And he started thinking about the next day.
'Tomorrow I'll go early in the morning and make it a point not to get excited. There's no end of snipe. And great snipe, too. I'll come back and there'll be a note from Kitty. Yes, maybe Stiva's right: I'm not manly enough with her, I've gone soft ... But what's to be done! Negative again!'
Through sleep he heard Veslovsky's and Stepan Arkadyich's laughter and merry talk. He opened his eyes for an instant: the moon had risen, and in the open doorway, in the bright light of the moon, they stood talking. Stepan Arkadyich was saying something about the girl's freshness, comparing it to a fresh, just-shelled nut, and Veslovsky, laughing his infectious laugh, repeated something, probably what the muzhik had said to him: 'You get yourself one of your own!' Levin murmured drowsily:
'Tomorrow at daybreak, gentlemen!' and fell asleep.
XII
Waking up in the early dawn, Levin tried to rouse his comrades. Vasenka, lying on his stomach, one stockinged foot thrust out, was so fast asleep that he could get no response from him. Oblonsky refused through his sleep to go so early. Even Laska, who slept curled up at the edge of the hay, got up reluctantly, lazily straightening and stretching her hind legs, first one and then the other. Levin put on his boots, took his gun and, carefully opening the creaking barn door, went out. The coachmen were sleeping by their carriages, the horses were dozing. Only one was lazily eating oats, scattering them all over the trough with its muzzle. It was still grey outside.
'What are you doing up so early, dearie?' the muzhik's old woman, stepping out of the cottage, addressed him amicably as a good old acquaintance.
'Going hunting, auntie. Is this the way to the marsh?'
'Straight through the back yards, past our threshing floor, my dear man, and then the hemp field - there's a footpath.'
Stepping carefully with her tanned bare feet, the old woman showed him to the fence of the threshing floor and opened it for him.
'Straight on and you'll hit the marsh. Our boys took the horses there last night.'
Laska gaily ran ahead on the path; Levin followed her with a quick, light step, constantly glancing at the sky. He did not want the sun to come up before he reached the marsh. But the sun did not tarry. The moon, which was still shining when he set out, now merely gleamed like a bit of quicksilver; the morning star, which could not be missed earlier, now had to be looked for; the spots on the distant field, indistinct before, were now clearly visible. They were shocks of rye. Still invisible without the sun's light, the dew on the tall, fragrant hemp, from which the heads had already been plucked, wetted Levin's legs and his blouse above the waist. In the transparent stillness of morning the slightest sounds could be heard. A bee whizzed past Levin's ear like a bullet. He looked closer and saw another, then a third. They all flew out from behind the wattle fence of the apiary and disappeared in the direction of the marsh. The path led him straight to the marsh. It could be recognized by the steam rising from it, thicker in some places, thinner in others, so that the sedge and some small willow bushes, like islands, wavered in this steam. At the edge of the marsh and the road, the boys and muzhiks who had spent the night with the horses all lay, having fallen asleep under their caftans before dawn. Not far from them, three hobbled horses moved about. One of them clanked its chains. Laska walked beside her master, looking about and asking to run ahead. As he walked past the sleeping muzhiks and came up to the first marshy patch, Levin checked his caps and let the dog go. One of the horses, a sleek chestnut two-year-old, saw the dog, shied, tossed its tail and snorted. The others also became frightened and, splashing their hobbled legs in the water, their hoofs making a sound like clapping as they pulled them from the thick clay, began leaping their way out of the marsh. Laska stopped, looking mockingly at the horses and questioningly at Levin. Levin patted her and whistled the signal for her to start.
Laska ran with a gay and preoccupied air over the bog that yielded under her.
Running into the marsh, Laska at once picked up, amidst the familiar smells of roots, marsh grass, rust, and the alien smell of horse dung, the bird smell spread all through the place, that same strong-smelling bird that excited her more than anything else. Here and there over the moss and marsh burdock this smell was very strong, but it was impossible to tell in which direction it grew stronger or weaker. To find the direction she had to go further downwind. Not feeling her legs under her, moving at a tense gallop so that she could stop at each leap if necessary, Laska ran to the right, away from the morning breeze blowing from the east, and then turned upwind. Breathing in the air with flared nostrils, she sensed at once that there were not only tracks but they themselves were there, and not one but many. She slowed the speed of her run. They were there, but precisely where she was still unable to tell. She had already begun a circle to find the place when her master's voice suddenly distracted her. 'Here, Laska!' he said, pointing in a different direction. She paused briefly, as if to ask if it would not be better to finish what she had begun. But he repeated the order in an angry voice, pointing to a water-flooded hummocky spot where there could not be anything. She obeyed him, pretending to search in order to give him pleasure, ran all over the hummocks and then went back to the former place, and immediately sensed them again. Now, when he was not hindering her, she knew what to do, and, not looking where she put her feet, stumbling in vexation over high hummocks and getting into the water, but managing with her strong, supple legs, she began the circle that would make everything clear to her. Their smell struck her more and more strongly, more and more distinctly, and suddenly it became perfectly clear to her that one of them was there, behind that hummock, five steps away from her. She stopped and her whole body froze. On her short legs she could see nothing ahead of her, but she knew from the smell that it was sitting no more than five steps away. She stood, sensing it more and more and delighting in the anticipation. Her tense tail was extended and only its very tip twitched. Her mouth was slightly open, her ears pricked up a little. One ear had got folded back as she ran, and she was breathing heavily but cautiously, and still more cautiously she turned more with her eyes than her head to look at her master. He, with his usual face but with his ever terrible eyes, was coming, stumbling over hummocks, and extremely slowly as it seemed to her. It seemed to her that he was moving slowly, yet he was running.
Noticing the special way Laska was searching, pressed flat to the ground, as if raking it with her hind legs in big strides, and with her mouth slightly open, Levin understood that she was after great snipe, and, praying to God in his heart that he would be successful, especially with the first bird, he ran to her. Coming right up to her, he began looking in front of him from his height and saw with his eyes what she had seen with her nose. In a space between two hummocks, close to one of them, he made out a great snipe. It was listening, its head turned. Then, fluffing its wings slightly and folding them again, it wagged its behind clumsily and disappeared round the corner.
'Flush it, flush it,' cried
Levin, nudging Laska from behind.
'But I can't flush anything,' thought Laska. 'Where will I flush it from? I can sense them from here, but if I move forward, I won't be able to tell where they are or what they are.' Yet here he was nudging her with his knee and saying in an excited whisper: 'Flush it, Lasochka, flush it!'
'Well, if that's what he wants, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself anymore,' she thought and tore forward at full speed between the hummocks. She no longer smelled anything, but only saw and heard, without understanding anything.
Ten steps from the former place, with a thick screech and the swelling noise of wings peculiar to its kind, a single great snipe flew up. And following a shot it plopped down heavily, its white breast against the wet bog. Another did not wait but flew up behind Levin without the dog.
When Levin turned to it, it was already far away. But the shot reached it. Having flown some twenty yards, the second snipe suddenly jerked upwards and, tumbling like a thrown ball, fell heavily on to a dry patch.
