Part Eight: Chapter 10

by Leo Tolstoy

　　When Levin thought what he was and what he was living for, hecould find no answer to the questions and was reduced to despair,but he left off questioning himself about it. It seemed asthough he knew both what he was and for what he was living, forhe acted and lived resolutely and without hesitation. Indeed, inthese latter days he was far more decided and unhesitating inlife than he had ever been.

　　When he went back to the country at the beginning of June, hewent back also to his usual pursuits. The management of theestate, his relations with the peasants and the neighbors, thecare of his household, the management of his sister's andbrother's property, of which he had the direction, his relationswith his wife and kindred, the care of his child, and the newbee-keeping hobby he had taken up that spring, filled all histime.

　　These things occupied him now, not because he justified them tohimself by any sort of general principles, as he had done informer days; on the contrary, disappointed by the failure of hisformer efforts for the general welfare, and too much occupiedwith his own thought and the mass of business with which he wasburdened from all sides, he had completely given up thinking ofthe general good, and he busied himself with all this work simplybecause it seemed to him that he must do what he was doing--thathe could not do otherwise. In former days--almost fromchildhood, and increasingly up to full manhood--when he had triedto do anything that would be good for all, for humanity, forRussia, for the whole village, he had noticed that the idea of ithad been pleasant, but the work itself had always beenincoherent, that then he had never had a full conviction of itsabsolute necessity, and that the work that had begun by seemingso great, had grown less and less, till it vanished into nothing.But now, since his marriage, when he had begun to confine himselfmore and more to living for himself, though he experienced nodelight at all at the thought of the work he was doing, he felt acomplete conviction of its necessity, saw that it succeeded farbetter than in old days, and that it kept on growing more andmore.

　　Now, involuntarily it seemed, he cut more and more deeply intothe soil like a plough, so that he could not be drawn out withoutturning aside the furrow.

　　To live the same family life as his father and forefathers--thatis, in the same condition of culture--and to bring up hischildren in the same, was incontestably necessary. It was asnecessary as dining when one was hungry. And to do this, just asit was necessary to cook dinner, it was necessary to keep themechanism of agriculture at Pokrovskoe going so as to yield anincome. Just as incontestably as it was necessary to repay adebt was it necessary to keep the property in such a conditionthat his son, when he received it as a heritage, would say "thankyou" to his father as Levin had said "thank you" to hisgrandfather for all he built and planted. And to do this it wasnecessary to look after the land himself, not to let it, and tobreed cattle, manure the fields, and plant timber.

　　It was impossible not to look after the affairs of SergeyIvanovitch, of his sister, of the peasants who came to him foradvice and were accustomed to do so--as impossible as to flingdown a child one is carrying in one's arms. It was necessary tolook after the comfort of his sister-in-law and her children, andof his wife and baby, and it was impossible not to spend withthem at least a short time each day.

　　And all this, together with shooting and his new bee-keeping,filled up the whole of Levin's life, which had no meaning at allfor him, when he began to think.

　　But besides knowing thoroughly what he had to do, Levin knew injust the same way how he had to do it all, and what was moreimportant than the rest.

　　He knew he must hire laborers as cheaply as possible; but to hiremen under bond, paying them in advance at less than the currentrate of wages, was what he must not do, even though it was veryprofitable. Selling straw to the peasants in times of scarcityof provender was what he might do, even though he felt sorry forthem; but the tavern and the pothouse must be put down, thoughthey were a source of income. Felling timber must be punished asseverely as possible, but he could not exact forfeits for cattlebeing driven onto his fields; and though it annoyed the keeperand made the peasants not afraid to graze their cattle on hisland, he could not keep their cattle as a punishment.

　　To Pyotr, who was paying a money-lender 10 per cent a month, hemust lend a sum of money to set him free. But he could not letoff peasants who did not pay their rent, nor let them fall intoarrears. It was impossible to overlook the bailiff's not havingmown the meadows and letting the hay spoil; and it was equallyimpossible to mow those acres where a young copse had beenplanted. It was impossible to excuse a laborer who had gone homein the busy season because his father was dying, however sorry hemight feel for him, and he must subtract from his pay thosecostly months of idleness. But it was impossible not to allowmonthly rations to the old servants who were of no use foranything.

　　Levin knew that when he got home he must first of all go to hiswife, who was unwell, and that the peasants who had been waitingfor three hours to see him could wait a little longer. He knewtoo that, regardless of all the pleasure he felt in taking aswarm, he must forego that pleasure, and leave the old man to seeto the bees alone, while he talked to the peasants who had comeafter him to the bee-house.

　　Whether he were acting rightly or wrongly he did not know, andfar from trying to prove that he was, nowadays he avoided allthought or talk about it.

　　Reasoning had brought him to doubt, and prevented him from seeingwhat he ought to do and what he ought not. When he did notthink, but simply lived, he was continually aware of the presenceof an infallible judge in his soul, determining which of twopossible courses of action was the better and which was theworse, and as soon as he did not act rightly, he was at onceaware of it.

　　So he lived, not knowing and not seeing any chance of knowingwhat he was and what he was living for, and harassed at this lackof knowledge to such a point that he was afraid of suicide, andyet firmly laying down his own individual definite path in life.