The professor, in annoyance, and, as it were, mental suffering at the interruption, looked round at the strange inquirer, more like a bargeman than a philosopher, and turned his eyes upon Sergey Ivanovitch, as though to ask: What’s one to say to him? But Sergey Ivanovitch, who had been talking with far less heat and one-sidedness than the professor, and who had sufficient breadth of mind to answer the professor, and at the same time to comprehend the simple and natural point of view from which the question was put, smiled and said:
“That question we have no right to answer as yet.”
“We have not the requisite data,” chimed in the professor, and he went back to his argument. “No,” he said; “I would point out the fact that if, as Pripasov directly asserts, perception is based on sensation, then we are bound to distinguish sharply between these two conceptions.”
Levin listened no more, and simply waited for the professor to go.
VIII
When the professor had gone, Sergey Ivanovitch turned to his brother.
“Delighted that you’ve come. For some time, is it? How’s your farming getting on?”
Levin knew that his elder brother took little interest in farming, and only put the question in deference to him, and so he only told him about the sale of his wheat and money matters.
Levin had meant to tell his brother of his determination to get married, and to ask his advice; he had indeed firmly resolved to do so. But after seeing his brother, listening to his conversation with the professor, hearing afterwards the unconsciously patronizing tone in which his brother questioned him about agricultural matters (their mother’s property had not been divided, and Levin took charge of both their shares), Levin felt that he could not for some reason begin to talk to him of his intention of marrying. He felt that his brother would not look at it as he would have wished him to.
“Well, how is your district council doing?” asked Sergey Ivanovitch, who was greatly interested in these local boards and attached great importance to them.
“I really don’t know.”
“What! Why, surely you’re a member of the board?”
“No, I’m not a member now; I’ve resigned,” answered Levin, “and I no longer attend the meetings.”
“What a pity!” commented Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning.
Levin in self-defense began to describe what took place in the meetings in his district.
“That’s how it always is!” Sergey Ivanovitch interrupted him. “We Russians are always like that. Perhaps it’s our strong point, really, the faculty of seeing our own shortcomings; but we overdo it, we comfort ourselves with irony which we always have on the tip of our tongues. All I say is, give such rights as our local self-government to any other European people—why, the Germans or the English would have worked their way to freedom from them, while we simply turn them into ridicule.”
“But how can it be helped?” said Levin penitently. “It was my last effort. And I did try with all my soul. I can’t. I’m no good at it.”
“It’s not that you’re no good at it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch; “it is that you don’t look at it as you should.”
“Perhaps not,” Levin answered dejectedly.
“Oh! do you know brother Nikolay’s turned up again?”
This brother Nikolay was the elder brother of Konstantin Levin, and half-brother of Sergey Ivanovitch; a man utterly ruined, who had dissipated the greater part of his fortune, was living in the strangest and lowest company, and had quarreled with his brothers.
“What did you say?” Levin cried with horror. “How do you know?”
“Prokofy saw him in the street.”
“Here in Moscow? Where is he? Do you know?” Levin got up from his chair, as though on the point of starting off at once.
“I am sorry I told you,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, shaking his head at his younger brother’s excitement. “I sent to find out where he is living, and sent him his I.O.U. to Trubin, which I paid. This is the answer he sent me.”
And Sergey Ivanovitch took a note from under a paperweight and handed it to his brother.
Levin read in the queer, familiar handwriting:
“I humbly beg you to leave me in peace. That’s the only favor I ask of my gracious brothers.—Nikolay Levin.”
Levin read it, and without raising his head stood with the note in his hands opposite Sergey Ivanovitch.
There was a struggle in his heart between the desire to forget his unhappy brother for the time, and the consciousness that it would be base to do so.
“He obviously wants to offend me,” pursued Sergey Ivanovitch; “but he cannot offend me, and I should have wished with all my heart to assist him, but I know it’s impossible to do that.”
“Yes, yes,” repeated Levin. “I understand and appreciate your attitude to him; but I shall go and see him.”
“If you want to, do; but I shouldn’t advise it,” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “As regards myself, I have no fear of your doing so; he will not make you quarrel with me; but for your own sake, I should say you would do better not to go. You can’t do him any good; still, do as you please.”
“Very likely I can’t do any good, but I feel—especially at such a moment—but that’s another thing—I feel I could not be at peace.”
“Well, that I don’t understand,” said Sergey Ivanovitch. “One thing I do understand,” he added; “it’s a lesson in humility. I have come to look very differently and more charitably on what is called infamous since brother Nikolay has become what he is … you know what he did. …”
“Oh, it’s awful, awful!” repeated Levin.
After obtaining his brother’s address from Sergey Ivanovitch’s footman, Levin was on the point of setting off at once to see him, but on second thought he decided to put off his visit till the evening. The first thing to do to set his heart at rest was to accomplish what he had come to Moscow for.
