"Splendid, splendid!" he said, lighting a fat cigar after the
roast. "I feel as if, coming to you, I had landed on a peaceful
shore after the noise and jolting of a steamer. And so you
maintain that the laborer himself is an element to be studied and
to regulate the choice of methods in agriculture. Of course, I'm
an ignorant outsider; but I should fancy theory and its
application will have its influence on the laborer too."
"Yes, but wait a bit. I'm not talking of political economy, I'm
talking of the science of agriculture. It ought to be like the
natural sciences, and to observe given phenomena and the laborer
in his economic, ethnographical..."
At that instant Agafea Mihalovna came in with jam.
"Oh, Agafea Mihalovna," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, kissing the
tips of his plump fingers, "what salt goose, what herb
brandy!...What do you think, isn't it time to start, Kostya?" he
added.
Levin looked out of the window at the sun sinking behind the bare
tree-tops of the forest.
"Yes, it's time," he said. "Kouzma, get ready the trap," and he
ran downstairs.
Stepan Arkadyevitch, going down, carefully took the canvas cover
off his varnished gun case with his own hands, and opening it,
began to get ready his expensive new-fashioned gun. Kouzma, who
already scented a big tip, never left Stepan Arkadyevitch's side,
and put on him both his stockings and boots, a task which Stepan
Arkadyevitch readily left him.
"Kostya, give orders that if the merchant Ryabinin comes...I told
him to come today, he's to be brought in and to wait for me..."
"Why, do you mean to say you're selling the forest to Ryabinin?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"To be sure I do. I have had to do business with him,
'positively and conclusively.'"
Stepan Arkadyevitch laughed. "Positively and conclusively" were
the merchant's favorite words.
"Yes, it's wonderfully funny the way he talks. She knows where
her master's going!" he added, patting Laska, who hung about
Levin, whining and licking his hands, his boots, and his gun.
The trap was already at the steps when they went out.
"I told them to bring the trap round; or would you rather walk?"
"No, we'd better drive," said Stepan Arkadyevitch, getting into
the trap. He sat down, tucked the tiger-skin rug round him, and
lighted a cigar. "How is it you don't smoke? A cigar is a sort
of thing, not exactly a pleasure, but the crown and outward sign
of pleasure. Come, this is life! How splendid it is! This is
how I should like to live!"