Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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on the thick undergrowth of the
grass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitch
asked his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow tree
from which the carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was to
crush down his mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow. The
high grass softly turned about the wheels and the horses legs,
leaving its seeds clinging to the wet axles and spokes of the
wheels. His brother seated himself under a bush, arranging his
tackle, while Levin led the horse away, fastened him up, and
walked into the vast gray-green sea of grass unstirred by the
wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost to his
waist in the dampest spots.
Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out onto the road, and
met an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his
shoulder.
"What? taken a stray swarm, Fomitch?" he asked.
"No, indeed, Konstantin Dmitrich! All we can do to keep our own!
This is the second swarm that has flown away.... Luckily the
lads caught them. They were ploughing your field. They unyoked
the horses and galloped after them."
"Well, what do you say, Fomitch--start mowing or wait a bit?"
"Eh, well. Our ways to wait till St. Peters Day. But you
always mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hays good.
Therell be plenty for the beasts."
"What do you think about the weather?"
"Thats in Gods hands. Maybe it will be fine."
Levin went up to his brother.
Sergey Ivanovitch had caught nothing, but he was not bored, and
seemed in the most cheerful frame of mind. Levin saw that,
stimulated by his conversation with the doctor, he wanted to
talk. Levin, on the other hand, would have liked to get home as
soon as possible to give orders about getting together the mowers
for next day, and to set at rest his doubts about the mowing,
which greatly absorbed him.
"Well, lets be going," he said.
"Why be in such a hurry? Lets stay a little. But how wet you
are! Even though one catches nothing, its nice. Thats the
best thing about every part of sport, that one has to do with
nature. How exquisite this steely water is!" said Sergey
Ivanovitch. "These riverside banks always remind me of the
riddle--do you know it? The grass says to the water: we
quiver and we quiver."
"I dont know the riddle," answered Levin wearily.
Chapter 3
"Do you know, Ive been thinking about you," said Sergey
Ivanovitch. "Its beyond everything whats being done in the
district, according to what this doctor tells me. Hes a very
intelligent fellow. And as Ive told you before, I tell you
again: its not right for you not to go to the meetings, and
altogether to keep out of the district business. If decent
people wont go into it, of course its bound to go all wrong.
We pay the money, and it all goes in salaries, and there are no
schools, nor district nurses, nor midwives, nor drugstores--
nothing."
"Well, I did try, you know," Levin said slowly and unwillingly.
"I cant! and so theres no help for it."
"But why cant you? I must own I cant make it out.
Indifference, incapacity--I wont admit; surely its not simply
laziness?"
"None of those things. Ive tried, and I see I can do nothing,"
said Levin.
He had hardly grasped what his brother was saying. Looking
towards the plough land across the river, he made out something
black, but he could not distinguish whether it was a horse or the
bailiff on horseback.
"Why is it you can do nothing? You made an attempt and didnt
succeed, as you think, and you give in. How can you have so
little self-respect?"
"Self-respect!" said Levin, stung to the quick by his brothers
words; "I dont understand. If theyd told me at college that
other people understood the integral calculus, and I didnt,
then pride would have come in. But in this case one wants first
to be convinced that one has certain qualifications for this sort
of business, and especially that all this business is of great
importance."
"What! do you mean to say its not of importance?" said Sergey
Ivanovitch, stung to the quick too at his brothers considering
anything of no importance that interested him, and still more at
his obviously paying little
Anna Karenina page 137 Anna Karenina page 139
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