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These chapters, though not especially action-packed, are
nonetheless exciting, for they let you see the manner in which
Levin\'s thoughts--on life and on his part in life--begin to
crystallize with startling speed.
He goes to visit his friend, Sviazhsky, who lives a
considerable distance away. En route, he stops to feed his
horses at the home of a wealthy peasant family. Levin talks
with the head of the family and learns that he is in the
practice of renting land to other peasants and taking a
percentage of their crop yield. His conversation with the old
man haunts him during his trip. Can you guess why? Review what
you already know about Levin\'s project to revolutionize
farming.
Levin is nervous about seeing Sviazhsky and his wife, for he
knows that they would like him to marry the wife\'s younger
sister. At dinner, the young woman is wearing a low-cut dress,
probably to capture Levin\'s attention. Levin is distracted,
made miserable by the sight of the woman\'s plunging neckline.
This points up his (and Tolstoy\'s) discomfort with sensuality
unless it is in the context of marriage.
Levin excuses himself from the ladies and joins the men for a
discussion on farming methods. Everyone has complaints.
Sviazhsky considers Russia a doomed country. The nobility, he
asserts, really favors serfdom, which he sees as a fatal flaw in
the Russian social make-up. He says that every year he shows a
loss because, even after emancipation, the peasants don\'t feel
they have enough stake in the system to work hard. Another
man--an old-fashioned type of landlord--believes the serfs were
better off before emancipation. He says they are too ignorant
to be able to fend for themselves.
Levin responds by arguing that the solution is to cure not
their ignorance first but their poverty. He concludes that the
only way to do this is to share all profits equally with the
peasants--thereby giving them a vested interest. As a result,
he says, everyone\'s income will increase. Levin realizes that
what bothered him about the old peasant\'s practice of renting
land to other peasants is that it is too similar to the way
things were done in the past--it\'s still a landlord-tenant
relationship. Levin wants a full partnership with the people
who work for him.
He vows to start this new system on his estate that very
season. He goes home and begins working feverishly.
NOTE: In the late 1840s (the emancipation happened in 1861),
Tolstoy tried to make the peasants at Yasnaya Polyana his
partners by selling them bits of land. Although the peasants
liked Tolstoy personally, they couldn\'t understand why a
landlord would do such a thing. Crestfallen at his failure,
Tolstoy returned to Moscow and spent 1848-1850 there. But after
emancipation, Tolstoy made it work.
Levin\'s life as an estate proprietor is based on Tolstoy\'s
experience as a landlord.
Nicholas arrives unexpectedly, saying that his health is much
improved. Clearly, though, he is worse--he is dying. Levin
realizes with a jolt that his discomfort with Nicholas has
stemmed from the fact that for a long time now he had associated
Nicholas with death. Levin is terribly depressed. He takes
comfort in the thought that maybe his work--if it\'s good enough
to live on after him--will, in a sense, save him from death.
It will pay to read these chapters a second time. Anna
Karenina is not only about the lives of the characters--it is
about Tolstoy\'s view of, and vision for, Russia. Levin is his
spokesman. You see, through Levin, Tolstoy\'s own
development--his intellectual false starts, crash landings, and
final soaring.
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