The narrow room, in which they were smoking and taking refresh~ ments, was full of noblemen. The excitement grew more intense, and every face betrayed some uneasiness. The excitement was specially1 keen for the leaders of each party, who knew every detail, and had reckoned up every vote. They were the generals organizing the approaching battle. The rest, like the rank and file before an engagement, though they were getting ready for the fight, sought for other distractions2 in the interval3. Some were lunching, standing4 at the bar, or sitting at the table; others were walking up and down the long room, smoking cigarettes, and talking with friends whom they had not seen for a long while.
Levin did not care to eat, and he was not smoking; he did not want to join his own friends, that is Sergey Ivanovitch, Stepan Arkadyevitch, Sviazhsky and the rest, because Vronsky in his equerry's uniform was standing with them in eager conversation. Levin had seen him already at the meeting on the previous day, and he had studiously avoided him, not caring to greet him. He went to the window and sat down, scanning the groups, and listening to what was being said around him. He felt depressed5, especially because everyone else was, as he saw, eager, anxious, and interested, and he alone, with an old, toothless little man with mumbling6 lips wearing a naval7 uniform, sitting beside him, had no interest in it and nothing to do.
"He's such a blackguard! I have told him so, but it makes no difference. Only think of it! He couldn't collect it in three years!" he heard vigorously uttered by a round-shouldered, short, country gentleman, who had pomaded hair hanging on his embroidered8 collar, and new boots obviously put on for the occasion, with heels that tapped energetically as he spoke9. Casting a displeased10 glance at Levin, this gentleman sharply turned his back.
"Yes, it's a dirty business, there's no denying," a small gentleman assented11 in a high voice.
Next, a whole crowd of country gentlemen, surrounding a stout12 general, hurriedly came near Levin. These persons were unmistakably seeking a place where they could talk without being overheard.
"How dare he say I had his breeches stolen! Pawned13 them for drink, I expect. Damn the fellow, prince indeed! He'd better not say it, the beast!"
"But excuse me! They take their stand on the act," was being said in another group; "the wife must be registered as noble."
"Oh, damn your acts! I speak from my heart. We're all gentlemen, aren't we? Above suspicion."
"Shall we go on, your excellency, fine champagne14?"
Another group was following a nobleman, who was shouting something in a loud voice; it was one of the three intoxicated15 gentlemen.
"I always advised Marya Semyonovna to let for a fair rent, for she can never save a profit," he heard a pleasant voice say. The speaker was a country gentleman with gray whiskers, wearing the regimental uniform of an old general staff-officer. It was the very landowner Levin had met at Sviazhsky's. He knew him at once. The landowner too stared at Levin, and they exchanged greetings. "Very glad to see you! To be sure! I remember you very well. Last year at our district marshal, Nikolay Ivanovitch's."
"Well, and how is your land doing?" asked Levin.
"Oh, still just the same, always at a loss," the landowner answered with a resigned smile, but with an expression of serenity16 and conviction that so it must be. "And how do you come to be in our province?" he asked. "Come to take part in our coup17 d'etat?" he said, confidently pronouncing the French words with a bad accent. "All Russia's here--gentlemen of the bedchamber, and everything short of the ministry18." He pointed19 to the imposing20 figure of Stepan Arkadyevitch in white trousers and his court uniform, walking by with a general.
"I ought to own that I don't very well understand the drift of the provincial21 elections," said Levin.
The landowner looked at him.
"Why, what is there to understand? There's no meaning in it at all. It's a decaying institution that goes on running only by the force of inertia22. Just look, the very uniforms tell you that it's an assembly of justices of the peace, permanent members of the court, and so on, but not of noblemen."
"Then why do you come?" asked Levin.
"From habit, nothing else. Then, too, one must keep up connections. It's a moral obligation of a sort. And then, to tell the truth, there's one's own interests. My son-in-law wants to stand as a permanent member; they're not rich people, and he must be brought forward. These gentlemen, now, what do they come for?" he said, pointing to the malignant23 gentleman, who was talking at the high table.
"That's the new generation of nobility."
"New it may be, but nobility it isn't. They're proprietors24 of a sort, but we're the landowners. As noblemen, they're cutting their own throats."
"But you say it's an institution that's served its time."
"That it may be, but still it ought to be treated a little more respectfully. Snetkov, now...We may be of use, or we may not, but we're the growth of a thousand years. If we're laying out a garden, planning one before the house, you know, and there you've a tree that's stood for centuries in the very spot.... Old and gnarled it may be, and yet you don't cut down the old fellow to make room for the flowerbeds, but lay out your beds so as to take advantage of the tree. You won't grow him again in a year," he said cautiously, and he immediately changed the conversation. "Well, and how is your land doing?"
"Oh, not very well. I make five per cent."
"Yes, but you don't reckon your own work. Aren't you worth something too? I'll tell you my own case. Before I took to seeing after the land, I had a salary of three hundred pounds from the service. Now I do more work than I did in the service, and like you I get five per cent on the land, and thank God for that. But one's work is thrown in for nothing."
"Then why do you do it, if it's a clear loss?"
"Oh, well, one does it! What would you have? It's habit, and one knows it's how it should be. And what's more," the landowner went on, leaning his elbows on the window and chatting on, "my son, I must tell you, has no taste for it. There's no doubt he'll be a scientific man. So there'll be no one to keep it up. And yet one does it. Here this year I've planted an orchard25."
"Yes, yes," said Levin, "that's perfectly26 true. I always feel there's no real balance of gain in my work on the land, and yet one does it.... It's a sort of duty one feels to the land."
"But I tell you what," the landowner pursued; "a neighbor of mine, a merchant, was at my place. We walked about the fields and the garden. 'No,' said he, 'Stepan Vassilievitch, everything's well looked after, but your garden's neglected.' But, as a fact, it's well kept up. 'To my thinking, I'd cut down that lime-tree. Here you've thousands of limes, and each would make two good bundles of bark. And nowadays that bark's worth something. I'd cut down the lot.' "
"And with what he made he'd increase his stock, or buy some land for a trifle, and let it out in lots to the peasants," Levin added, smiling. He had evidently more than once come across those commercial calculations. "And he'd make his fortune. But you and I must thank God if we keep what we've got and leave it to our children."
"You're married, I've heard?" said the landowner.
"Yes," Levin answered, with proud satisfaction. "Yes, it's rather strange," he went on. "So we live without making anything, as though we were ancient vestals set to keep in a fire."
The landowner chuckled27 under his white mustaches.
"There are some among us, too, like our friend Nikolay Ivanovitch, or Count Vronsky, that's settled here lately, who try to carry on their husbandry as though it were a factory; but so far it leads to nothing but making away with capital on it."
"But why is it we don't do like the merchants? Why don't we cut down our parks for timber?" said Levin, returning to a thought that had struck him.
"Why, as you said, to keep the fire in. Besides that's not work for a nobleman. And our work as noblemen isn't done here at the elections, but yonder, each in our corner. There's a class instinct, too, of what one ought and oughtn't to do. There's the peasants, too, I wonder at them sometimes; any good peasant tries to take all the land he can. However bad the land is, he'll work it. Without a return too. At a simple loss."
"Just as we do," said Levin. "Very, very glad to have met you," he added, seeing Sviazhsky approaching him.
"And here we've met for the first time since we met at your place," said the landowner to Sviazhsky, "and we've had a good talk too."
"Well, have you been attacking the new order of things?" said Sviazhsky with a smile.
"That we're bound to do."
"You've relieved your feelings?"
收听单词发音 |
1
specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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distractions
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| n.使人分心的事[人]( distraction的名词复数 )；娱乐，消遣；心烦意乱；精神错乱 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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depressed
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| adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的 | |
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mumbling
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| 含糊地说某事，叽咕，咕哝( mumble的现在分词 ) | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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10
displeased
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| a.不快的 | |
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assented
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| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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13
pawned
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| v.典当，抵押( pawn的过去式和过去分词 )；以（某事物）担保 | |
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14
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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15
intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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16
serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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17
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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18
ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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inertia
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| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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24
proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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25
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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26
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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