Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Six/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX
The narrow hall where men smoked and had luncheon was crowded with nobles. The excitement kept increasing, and all faces showed signs of anxiety. Especially agitated were the leaders, who knew all the details and had followed the voting very closely. These men had charge of the approaching engagement. The others, like the soldiers in the ranks before the battle, although ready for the conflict, in the meantime sought diversion. Some ate luncheon, standing or sitting at the buffet; others walked up and down the long room smoking cigarettes, and talked with friends whom they had not seen for long.
Levin did not feel hungry, he did not smoke, and he did not care to join his friends, that is, Sergyei Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky, and the others, for the reason that Vronsky in his equerry's uniform stood in lively conversation with them. The evening before he had seen Vronsky at the election, and had carefully avoided him, not wishing to come into contact with him. He went to a window and sat down, watching the groups and listening to what was said around him. He felt depressed, especially because all the others, as he could see, were animated, active, and occupied, and he alone was inert and indifferent; the only other exception was an old man in a naval uniform, who had no teeth and who spoke in a mumbling voice.
"What a rogue. I told him it was not so! He can't make it up in three years," a round-shouldered, short proprietor was saying energetically; this man, whose long unpomaded hair was spread out over the embroidered collar of his uniform coat, walked along, noisily putting down the heels of his new boots which evidently had been made for the elections; but as he caught sight of Levin he cast a hostile glance at him, and turned about abruptly.
"Yes, it is a nasty thing to say so," repeated the little proprietor, in a piping voice.
Immediately behind these two came a whole throng of proprietors, crowding around a tall general, and quickly approaching where Levin was. They were evidently trying to find some place where they would not be overheard. "How does he dare to say that I ordered his trousers to be stolen. He drank them up, I reckon. I don't care a straw if he is a prince. Don't let him dare to say such a thing; it's swinish!"
"Hold on, excuse me. They insist on the letter of the law," they were saying in another group; "his wife must be inscribed among the nobility."
"The devil take the letter of the law! I insist on its spirit. According to that they are genuine nobles, believe me."
"Your excellency, let us come, fine champagne!"
Another group immediately pressed behind a noble who was shouting something at the top of his voice; this was one of the three drunken nobles.
"I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let it on a lease because she gets no profit out of it," a proprietor was saying in a pleasant voice. This man had gray whiskers and wore the uniform of a colonel on the old general's staff. It was the same proprietor whom he had once met at Sviazhsky's house. Levin immediately recognized him. The proprietor also glanced at Levin, and they greeted each other.
"This is very pleasant. How are you? I remember you very well. We met last year at Nikolaï Ivanovitch's, at the marshal's."
"Well, how goes your farming?"[1] asked Levin.
"Everything is going to rack and ruin," said the proprietor, halting near Levin, and looking at him with a submissive smile, but with an expression of calmness and confidence that this was the natural order of things.
"But how does it happen that you are in our part of the world?" he asked. "Did you come to take part in our coup d'état? he went on, pronouncing the French words with confidence, but with a bad accent.
"All Russia is assembled here,—chamberlains, if not ministers."
He pointed to Stepan Arkadyevitch's imposing figure, as in white trousers and chamberlain's uniform he strode along next the general.
"I must confess to you," said Levin, "I don't understand the significance of these noblemen's elections."
The old gentleman looked at him.
"Well! what is there to understand? what significance can they have? It 's a decaying institution which prolongs itself by the force of inertia. Look at all these uniforms; they tell you this is an assemblage of justices of the peace, perpetual councilors, and so on, but no noblemen."
"Why, then, do you come?"
"From habit, to keep up relations; from a sort of moral obligation. And then, if I must tell the truth, I came on a question of personal interest. My son-in-law wants to be elected as a perpetual councilor; he's not rich; I must try to help him. But why do such people as that come?" and he pointed out the orator whose sharp voice had struck Levin during the debates at the governor's table.
"It is a new generation of nobles."[2]
"Certainly new, but not nobles. They are landholders, but we are the proprietors. But they are trying to get the power as if they were nobles."
"Yes, but you say it is a decaying institution?"
"Decaying or not decaying, it must be treated more respectfully. Even though Snetkof .... We may not be worth much, but, nevertheless, we have lasted a thousand years. Suppose you lay out a new garden before your house and there happens to be a century-old tree which has grown up on your land. .... Though the tree is old and gnarled, you don't have it cut down, but you lay out your walks and your flower-beds in such a way as to preserve intact the old oak. You can't grow such a tree in one year," said he, cautiously, and immediately changed the conversation. "Well, how do matters go with you?"
"Not very brilliantly; five per cent!"
"Yes, but you don't reckon your own time and labor. Now, I will tell you about myself. Up to the time when I began to take care of my own estate, and while I was still in the service, I used to receive three thousand a year. Now I work harder than when I was in the service, and I also get about five per cent, and am lucky if I get that. And all my time and trouble are thrown in."
"But why do you do so if the results are so unprofitable?"
"Yes, why do I? What shall I say? Habit, and because I know it has got to be done. I will tell you something besides," continued the proprietor, leaning his elbow on the window-seat and falling into a tone of monologue, "my son has no taste for farming.[3] He is evidently going to be a scholar. So there'll be no one to carry it on after me. And yet one goes ahead. Here I've just planted a garden."
"Yes, yes," said Levin. "You are quite right. I always am conscious that there's no real economy in my farming, but still I go on with it. .... But one feels that one owes a certain duty to the land."
"Now I will tell you another thing," continued the proprietor. "A neighbor, a merchant, came to see me. We went over the farm, and then the garden. 'Well, Stepan Vasilyevitch, your place is in order,' said he, 'but your garden has too much shade.' But he found it in order, mind you. 'My advice would be, cut down those lindens. Just for the bark. Here are a thousand lindens. Each one will make two excellent basts, and basts sell well. If I were you, I should cut some of that linden trash down and sell it.'"
"Yes, and with the money he would buy cattle, or perhaps a bit of ground cheap, and he would lease it to the peasants," said Levin, with a smile, for evidently he had more than once come in contact with similar cases. "And so he makes a fortune. But you and I thank God if we keep our land, and are able to leave it to our children."
"You are married, I have heard?"
"Yes," replied Levin, with proud satisfaction. "It is wonderful! We live without making any profit, obliged, like ancient vestals, to watch some holy fire."
The old gentleman smiled under his white mustache.
"Some people, like our friend Sviazhsky and Count Vronsky, pretend to make something by agriculture; but so far they have only succeeded in eating into their capital."
"Why shouldn't we imitate the merchants, and cut down the trees in our parks and make money?" asked Levin, reverting to the idea which had struck him.
"Just this! because we guard the sacred fire, as you say. Besides, that is not the business of the nobles. And our work as nobles does not lie here, at these elections, but at home, each in his own place. It is a caste instinct that tells us what is necessary or not necessary. The muzhiks have theirs; a good muzhik will persist in hiring as much land as he can. No matter how bad it is, he will work it just the same,—even without profit."
"We are all alike," said Levin. "I am very glad to have met you!" he added, seeing Sviazhsky approaching.
"Here we have met for the first time since we were together at your house," said the proprietor to Sviazhsky. "Yes, and we have been having a talk."
"And doubtless have been slandering the new order of things?" said Sviazhsky, smiling.
"Something of the sort."
"One must free one's mind."