"No, you can ask anyone you like," Konstantin Levin answered

with decision, "the man that can read and write is much inferior

as a workman. And mending the highroads is an impossibility; and

as soon as they put up bridges they're stolen."

"Still, that's not the point," said Sergey Ivanovitch, frowning.

He disliked contradiction, and still more, arguments that were

continually skipping from one thing to another, introducing new

and disconnected points, so that there was no knowing to which to

reply. "Do you admit that education is a benefit for the

people?"

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"Yes, I admit it," said Levin without thinking, and he was

conscious immediately that he had said what he did not think. He

felt that if he admitted that, it would be proved that he had

been talking meaningless rubbish. How it would be proved he

could not tell, but he knew that this would inevitably be

logically proved to him, and he awaited the proofs.

The argument turned out to be far simpler than he had expected.

"If you admit that it is a benefit," said Sergey Ivanovitch,

"then, as an honest man, you cannot help caring about it and

sympathizing with the movement, and so wishing to work for it."

"But I still do not admit this movement to be just," said

Konstantin Levin, reddening a little.

"What! But you said just now..."

"That's to say, I don't admit it's being either good or

possible."

"That you can't tell without making the trial."

"Well, supposing that's so," said Levin, though he did not

suppose so at all, "supposing that is so, still I don't see, all

the same, what I'm to worry myself about it for."

"How so?"

"No; since we are talking, explain it to me from the

philosophical point of view," said Levin.

"I can't see where philosophy comes in," said Sergey Ivanovitch,

in a tone, Levin fancied, as though he did not admit his

brother's right to talk about philosophy. And that irritated

Levin.

"I'll tell you, then," he said with heat, "I imagine the

mainspring of all our actions is, after all, self-interest. Now

in the local institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that

could conduce to my prosperity, and the roads are not better and

could not be better; my horses carry me well enough over bad

ones. Doctors and dispensaries are no use to me. An arbitrator

of disputes is no use to me. I never appeal to him, and never

shall appeal to him. The schools are no good to me, but

positively harmful, as I told you. For me the district

institutions simply mean the liability to pay fourpence halfpenny

for every three acres, to drive into the town, sleep with bugs,

and listen to all sorts of idiocy and loathsomeness, and

self-interest offers me no inducement."




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