1000 1001
Vronsky acted in this matter quite differently from Levin. He
obviously attached no significance to Veslovsky’s chattering; on the
contrary, he encouraged his jests.
“Come now, tell us, Veslovsky, how are the stones held together?”
“By cement, of course.”
“Bravo! And what is cement?”
“Oh, some sort of paste ...no, putty,” said Veslovsky, raising a gen-
eral laugh.
The company at dinner, with the exception of the doctor, the archi-
tect, and the steward, who remained plunged in gloomy silence, kept
up a conversation that never paused, glancing off one subject, fasten-
ing on another, and at times stinging one or the other to the quick.
Once Darya Alexandrovna felt wounded to the quick, and got so hot
that she positively flushed and wondered afterwards whether she had
said anything extreme or unpleasant. Sviazhsky began talking of Levin,
describing his strange view that machinery is simply pernicious in its
effects on Russian agriculture.
“I have not the pleasure of knowing this M. Levin,” Vronsky said,
smiling, “but most likely he has never seen the machines he condemns;
or if he has seen and tried any, it must have been after a queer fashion,
some Russian imitation, not a machine from abroad. What sort of
views can anyone have on such a subject?”
“Turkish views, in general,” Veslovsky said, turning to Anna with a
smile.
“I can’t defend his opinions,” Darya Alexandrovna said, firing up;
“but I can say that he’s a highly cultivated man, and if he were here he
would know very well how to answer you, though I am not capable of
doing so.”
“I like him extremely, and we are great friends,” Sviazhsky said,
smiling good-naturedly. “Mais pardon, il est un petit peu toque; he
maintains, for instance, that district councils and arbitration boards are
all of no use, and he is unwilling to take part in anything.”
“It’s our Russian apathy,” said Vronsky, pouring water from an iced
decanter into a delicate glass on a high stem; “we’ve no sense of the
duties our privileges impose upon us, and so we refuse to recognize
these duties.”
“I know no man more strict in the performance of his duties,” said
Darya Alexandrovna, irritated by Vronsky’s tone of superiority.
“For my part,” pursued Vronsky, who was evidently for some rea-
son or other keenly affected by this conversation, “such as I am, I am,
on the contrary, extremely grateful for the honor they have done me,
thanks to Nikolay Ivanitch” (he indicated Sviazhsky), “in electing me a
justice of the peace. I consider that for me the duty of being present at
the session, of judging some peasants’ quarrel about a horse, is as
important as anything I can do. And I shall regard it as an honor if they
elect me for the district council. It’s only in that way I can pay for the
advantages I enjoy as a landowner. Unluckily they don’t understand
the weight that the big landowners ought to have in the state.”
It was strange to Darya Alexandrovna to hear how serenely confi-
dent he was of being right at his own table. She thought how Levin,
who believed the opposite, was just as positive in his opinions at his
own table. But she loved Levin, and so she was on his side.
“So we can reckon upon you, count, for the coming elections?” said
Sviazhsky. “But you must come a little beforehand, so as to be on the
spot by the eighth. If you would do me the honor to stop with me.”
“I rather agree with your beau-frere,” said Anna, “though not quite
on the same ground as he,” she added with a smile. “I’m afraid that we
have too many of these public duties in these latter days. Just as in old