Anna Karenina — Chapter 30 (Part 1 of 2)

At the end of September the timber had been carted for building the cattle yard on the land that had been allotted to the association of peasants, and the butter from the cows was sold and the profits divided. In Practice the system worked capitally, or, at least, so it seemed to Levin. In order to work out the whole subject theoretically and to complete his book, which, in Levin's daydreams, was not merely to effect a revolution in political economy, but to annihilate that science entirely and to lay the foundation of a new science of the relation of the people to the soil, all that was left to do was to make a tour abroad, and to study on the spot all that had been done in the same direction, and to collect conclusive evidence that all that had been done there was not what was wanted. Levin was only waiting for the delivery of his wheat to receive the money for it and go abroad. But the rains began preventing the harvesting of the corn and potatoes left in the fields, and putting a stop to all work, even to the delivery of the wheat. The mud was impassable along the roads; two mills were carried away by the spate, and the weather got worse and worse.

On the 30th of September the sun came out in the morning, and, hoping for fine weather, Levin began making final preparations for his journey. He gave orders for the wheat to be delivered, sent the bailiff to the merchant to get the money owing him, and went out himself to give some final directions on the estate before setting off.

Having finished all his business, soaked through with the streams of water which kept running into his leather coat and down his neck and his boot tops, but in the keenest and most confident temper, Levin turned homeward in the evening. The weather had become worse than ever toward evening; the hail lashed the drenched mare so cruelly that she went along sideways, shaking her head and ears; but Levin was all right under his hood, and he looked cheerfully about him at the muddy streams running under the wheels, at the drops hanging on every bare twig, at the whiteness of the patch of unmelted hailstones on the planks of the bridge, at the thick layer of still succulent, fleshy leaves that lay heaped up about the stripped elm tree. In spite of the gloominess of nature around him, he felt peculiarly eager. The talks he had been having with the peasants in the farther village had shown that they were beginning to get used to their new position. The innkeeper, an old man, to whose inn he had gone to get dry evidently approved of Levin's plan, and of his own accord proposed to enter the partnership for purchasing of cattle.

`I have only to go on stubbornly toward my aim, and I shall attain my end,' thought Levin; `and it's something to work and take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually, the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole system of agriculture, the chief element in the condition of the people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty - general prosperity and content; instead of hostility - harmony and unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, and the whole world. Because a just idea cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it's an aim worth working for. And the fact that it is I, Kostia Levin, who went to a ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shcherbatsky girl, and who is intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless creature to himself - that proves nothing; I feel sure Franklin felt just as worthless, and he too had no faith in himself, thinking of himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most likely, had an Agathya Mikhailovna to whom he confided his secrets.'

Musing on such thoughts Levin reached home in the darkness.

The bailiff, who had been to the merchant, had come back and brought part of the money for the wheat. An agreement had been made with the old innkeeper, and on the road the bailiff had learned that everywhere the corn was still standing in the fields, so that his one hundred and sixty shocks that had not been carried were nothing in comparison with the losses of others.

After dinner Levin was sitting, as he usually did, in an easy chair with a book, and as he read he went on thinking of the journey before him in connection with his book. Today all the significance of his book rose before him with special distinctness, and whole periods ranged themselves in his mind in illustration of his theories. `I must write that down,' he thought. `That ought to form a brief introduction, which I thought