Anna Karenina

left off questioning himself about it. It seemed as though he knew both what he was and for what he was living, for he acted and lived

ith the peasants and the neighbors, the care of his household, the management of his sister's and brother's property, of which he had the directi

ly because it seemed to him that he must do what he was doing-that he could not do otherwise. In former days-almost from childhood, and increasingly up to full manhood-when he had tried to do anything that would be good for all, for humanity, for Russia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the idea of it had been pleasant, but the work itself had always been incoherent, that then he had never had a full conviction of its absolute ne

deeply into the soil like a plough, so that he coul

o cook dinner, it was necessary to keep the mechanism of agriculture at Pokrovskoe going so as to yield an income. Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay a debt was it necessary to keep the property in such a condition that his son, when he received it

accustomed to do so-as impossible as to fling down a child one is carrying in one's arms. It was necessary to look after the comfort of h

keeping, filled up the whole of Levin's life, which h

Levin knew in just the same way how he had to do

ants in times of scarcity of provender was what he might do, even though he felt sorry for them; but the tavern and the pothouse must be put down, though they were a source of income. Felling timber must be punished as severely as

e bailiff's not having mown the meadows and letting the hay spoil; and it was equally impossible to mow those acres where a young copse had been planted. It was impossible to excuse a laborer who had gone home in the busy season beca

ee hours to see him could wait a little longer. He knew too that, regardless of all the pleasure he felt in taking a swarm, he must fore

ot know, and far from trying to prove that he was,

nk, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presence of an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of two poss

was living for, and harassed at this lack of knowledge to such a point that he was a