Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/909

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ANNA KARENINA
227

memory. I learn my lessons over again. Just as in your estate, you have to have workmen and overseers, so here it needs some one to watch the teachers. But see what I am reading,"—and he pointed to the grammar of Buslayef lying on the stand,—"Misha has to learn it, and it is so hard. .... Now explain this to me."

Levin wanted to explain to him that it was impossible to understand it, that it simply had to be learned. But Lvof did not agree with him.

"Yes, now you are making fun of it."

"On the contrary, you can't imagine how much I learn, when I look at you, about the way to teach children."

"Well! You could not learn much from me."

"I only know that I never saw children so well brought up as yours, and I should not want better children than yours."

Lvof evidently wanted to restrain himself so as not to betray his satisfaction, but his face lighted up with a smile.

"Only let them be better than I. That is all that I want. But you don't know the bother," he began, "with lads who, like mine, have been allowed to run wild abroad."

"You are regulating all that. They are such capable children. The main thing is—their moral training. And this is what I learn in looking at your children."

"You speak of the moral training. You can't imagine how hard it is. Just as soon as you have conquered one crop of weeds, others spring up, and there is always a fight. If you don't have a support in religion,—be- tween ourselves,—no father on earth, relying on his own strength and without this help, could ever succeed in training them."

This conversation, which was extremely interesting to Levin, was interrupted by the pretty Natalie Aleksandrovna, dressed for going out.

"I didn't know you were here," said she to Levin, evidently not regretting, but even rejoicing, that she had interrupted his conversation, which was too long for her