Part Three: Chapter 28

by Leo Tolstoy

　　Levin was insufferably bored that evening with the ladies; he wasstirred as he had never been before by the idea that thedissatisfaction he was feeling with his system of managing hisland was not an exceptional case, but the general condition ofthings in Russia; that the organization of some relation of thelaborers to the soil in which they would work, as with thepeasant he had met half-way to the Sviazhskys', was not a dream,but a problem which must be solved. And it seemed to him thatthe problem could be solved, and that he ought to try and solveit.

　　After saying good-night to the ladies, and promising to stay thewhole of the next day, so as to make an expedition on horsebackwith them to see an interesting ruin in the crown forest, Levinwent, before going to bed, into his host's study to get the bookson the labor question that Sviazhsky had offered him.Sviazhsky's study was a huge room, surrounded by bookcases andwith two tables in it--one a massive writing table, standing inthe middle of the room, and the other a round table, covered withrecent numbers of reviews and journals in different languages,ranged like the rays of a star round the lamp. On the writingtable was a stand of drawers marked with gold lettering, and fullof papers of various sorts.

　　Sviazhsky took out the books, and sat down in a rocking-chair.

　　"What are you looking at there?" he said to Levin, who wasstanding at the round table looking through the reviews.

　　"Oh, yes, there's a very interesting article here," saidSviazhsky of the review Levin was holding in his hand. "Itappears," he went on, with eager interest, "that Friedrich wasnot, after all, the person chiefly responsible for the partitionof Poland. It is proved..."

　　And with his characteristic clearness, he summed up those new,very important, and interesting revelations. Although Levin wasengrossed at the moment by his ideas about the problem of theland, he wondered, as he heard Sviazhsky: "What is there insideof him? And why, why is he interested in the partition ofPoland?" When Sviazhsky had finished, Levin could not helpasking: "Well, and what then?" But there was nothing to follow.It was simply interesting that it had been proved to be so andso. But Sviazhsky did not explain, and saw no need to explainwhy it was interesting to him.

　　"Yes, but I was very much interested by your irritable neighbor,"said Levin, sighing. "He's a clever fellow, and said a lot thatwas true."

　　"Oh, get along with you! An inveterate supporter of serfdom atheart, like all of them!" said Sviazhsky.

　　"Whose marshal you are."

　　"Yes, only I marshal them in the other direction," saidSviazhsky, laughing.

　　"I'll tell you what interests me very much," said Levin. "He'sright that our system, that's to say of rational farming, doesn'tanswer, that the only thing that answers is the money-lendersystem, like that meek-looking gentleman's, or else the verysimplest.... Whose fault is it?"

　　"Our own, of course. Besides, it's not true that it doesn'tanswer. It answers with Vassiltchikov."

　　"A factory..."

　　"But I really don't know what it is you are surprised at. Thepeople are at such a low stage of rational and moral development,that it's obvious they're bound to oppose everything that'sstrange to them. In Europe, a rational system answers becausethe people are educated; it follows that we must educate thepeople--that's all."

　　"But how are we to educate the people?"

　　"To educate the people three things are needed: schools, andschools, and schools.

　　"But you said yourself the people are at such a low stage ofmaterial development: what help are schools for that?"

　　"Do you know, you remind me of the story of the advice given tothe sick man--You should try purgative medicine. Taken: worse.Try leeches. Tried them: worse. Well, then, there's nothingleft but to pray to God. Tried it: worse. That's just how it iswith us. I say political economy; you say--worse. I saysocialism: worse. Education: worse."

　　"But how do schools help matters?"

　　"They give the peasant fresh wants."

　　"Well, that's a thing I've never understood," Levin replied withheat. "In what way are schools going to help the people toimprove their material position? You say schools, education,will give them fresh wants. So much the worse, since they won'tbe capable of satisfying them. And in what way a knowledge ofaddition and subtraction and the catechism is going to improvetheir material condition, I never could make out. The daybefore yesterday, I met a peasant woman in the evening with alittle baby, and asked her where she was going. She said she wasgoing to the wise woman; her boy had screaming fits, so she wastaking him to be doctored. I asked, 'Why, how does the wisewoman cure screaming fits?' 'She puts the child on the hen-roostand repeats some charm....' "

　　"Well, you're saying it yourself! What's wanted to prevent hertaking her child to the hen-roost to cure it of screaming fits isjust..." Sviazhsky said, smiling good-humoredly.

　　"Oh, no!" said Levin with annoyance; "that method of doctoring Imerely meant as a simile for doctoring the people with schools.The people are poor and ignorant--that we see as surely as thepeasant woman sees the baby is ill because it screams. But inwhat way this trouble of poverty and ignorance is to be cured byschools is as incomprehensible as how the hen-roost affects thescreaming. What has to be cured is what makes him poor."

　　"Well, in that, at least, you're in agreement with Spencer, whomyou dislike so much. He says, too, that education may be theconsequence of greater prosperity and comfort, of more frequentwashing, as he says, but not of being able to read and write..."

　　"Well, then, I'm very glad--or the contrary, very sorry, thatI'm in agreement with Spencer; only I've known it a long while.Schools can do no good; what will do good is an economicorganization in which the people will become richer, will havemore leisure--and then there will be schools."

　　"Still, all over Europe now schools are obligatory."

　　"And how far do you agree with Spencer yourself about it?" askedLevin.

　　But there was a gleam of alarm in Sviazhsky's eyes, and he saidsmiling:

　　"No; that screaming story is positively capital! Did you reallyhear it yourself?"

　　Levin saw that he was not to discover the connection between thisman's life and his thoughts. Obviously he did not care in theleast what his reasoning led him to; all he wanted was theprocess of reasoning. And he did not like it when the process ofreasoning brought him into a blind alley. That was the onlything he disliked, and avoided by changing the conversation tosomething agreeable and amusing.

　　All the impressions of the day, beginning with the impressionmade by the old peasant, which served, as it were, as thefundamental basis of all the conceptions and ideas of the day,threw Levin into violent excitement. This dear good Sviazhsky,keeping a stock of ideas simply for social purposes, andobviously having some other principles hidden from Levin, whilewith the crowd, whose name is legion, he guided public opinion byideas he did not share; that irascible country gentleman,perfectly correct in the conclusions that he had been worriedinto by life, but wrong in his exasperation against a wholeclass, and that the best class in Russia; his own dissatisfactionwith the work he had been doing, and the vague hope of finding aremedy for all this--all was blended in a sense of inwardturmoil, and anticipation of some solution near at hand.

　　Left alone in the room assigned him, lying on a spring mattressthat yielded unexpectedly at every movement of his arm or hisleg, Levin did not fall asleep for a long while. Not oneconversation with Sviazhsky, though he had said a great deal thatwas clever, had interested Levin; but the conclusions of theirascible landowner required consideration. Levin could not helprecalling every word he had said, and in imagination amending hisown replies.

　　"Yes, I ought to have said to him: You say that our husbandrydoes not answer because the peasant hates improvements, and thatthey must be forced on him by authority. If no system ofhusbandry answered at all without these improvements, you wouldbe quite right. But the only system that does answer is wherelaborer is working in accordance with his habits, just as on theold peasant's land half-way here. Your and our generaldissatisfaction with the system shows that either we are to blameor the laborers. We have gone our way--the European way--along while, without asking ourselves about the qualities of ourlabor force. Let us try to look upon the labor force not as anabstract force, but as the Russian peasant with his instincts,and we shall arrange our system of culture in accordance withthat. Imagine, I ought to have said to him, that you have thesame system as the old peasant has, that you have found means ofmaking your laborers take an interest in the success of the work,and have found the happy mean in the way of improvements whichthey will admit, and you will, without exhausting the soil, gettwice or three times the yield you got before. Divide it inhalves, give half as the share of labor, the surplus left youwill be greater, and the share of labor will be greater too. Andto do this one must lower the standard of husbandry and interestthe laborers in its success. How to do this?--that's a matterof detail; but undoubtedly it can be done."

　　This idea threw Levin into a great excitement. He did not sleephalf the night, thinking over in detail the putting of his ideainto practice. He had not intended to go away next day, but henow determined to go home early in the morning. Besides, thesister-in-law with her low-necked bodice aroused in him a feelingakin to shame and remorse for some utterly base action. Mostimportant of all--he must get back without delay: he would haveto make haste to put his new project to the peasants before thesowing of the winter wheat, so that the sowing might beundertaken on a new basis. He had made up his mind torevolutionize his whole system.