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Chapter 25.
“So you see,” pursued Nikolay Levin, painfully wrinkling his fore-
head and twitching.
It was obviously difficult for him to think of what to say and do.
“Here, do you see?”... He pointed to some sort of iron bars, fas-
tened together with strings, lying in a corner of the room. “Do you see
that? That’s the beginning of a new thing we’re going into. It’s a pro-
ductive association...”
Konstantin scarcely heard him. He looked into his sickly, con-
sumptive face, and he was more and more sorry for him, and he could
not force himself to listen to what his brother was telling him about the
association. He saw that this association was a mere anchor to save
him from self-contempt. Nikolay Levin went on talking:
“You know that capital oppresses the laborer. The laborers with us,
the peasants, bear all the burden of labor, and are so placed that how-
ever much they work they can’t escape from their position of beasts of
burden. All the profits of labor, on which they might improve their
position, and gain leisure for themselves, and after that education, all
the surplus values are taken from them by the capitalists. And society’s
so constituted that the harder they work, the greater the profit of the
merchants and landowners, while they stay beasts of burden to the
end. And that state of things must be changed,” he finished up, and
he looked questioningly at his brother.
“Yes, of course,” said Konstantin, looking at the patch of red that
had come out on his brother’s projecting cheek bones.
“And so we’re founding a locksmiths’ association, where all the
production and profit and the chief instruments of production will be
in common.”
“Where is the association to be?” asked Konstantin Levin.
“In the village of Vozdrem, Kazan government.”
“But why in a village? In the villages, I think, there is plenty of work
as it is. Why a locksmiths’ association in a village?”
“Why? Because the peasants are just as much slaves as they ever
were, and that’s why you and Sergey Ivanovitch don’t like people to try
and get them out of their slavery,” said Nikolay Levin, exasperated by
the objection.
Konstantin Levin sighed, looking meanwhile about the cheerless
and dirty room. This sigh seemed to exasperate Nikolay still more.
“I know your and Sergey Ivanovitch’s aristocratic views. I know
that he applies all the power of his intellect to justify existing evils.”
“No; and what do you talk of Sergey Ivanovitch for?” said Levin,
smiling.
“Sergey Ivanovitch? I’ll tell you what for!” Nikolay Levin shrieked
suddenly at the name of Sergey Ivanovitch. “I’ll tell you what for....
But what’s the use of talking? There’s only one thing.... What did you
come to me for? You look down on this, and you’re welcome to,—and go
away, in God’s name go away!” he shrieked, getting up from his chair.
“And go away, and go away!”
“I don’t look down on it at all,” said Konstantin Levin timidly. “I
don’t even dispute it.”
At that instant Marya Nikolaevna came back. Nikolay Levin