Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/332

 which is called "heart," of that impulse which constrains a man to choose one out of all multitudes of paths which life offers to men, and to desire this alone. The better he knew his brother, the more he remarked that Sergyeï Ivanovitch and many other workers for the common good were mot drawn by their affections to this work, but that they used their reason to justify themselves in the interest they took in it.

Levin was still further confirmed in this hypothesis by the observation that his brother did not really take much more to heart the questions concerning the common good and the immortality of the soul than those connected with a game of chess or the ingenious construction of a new machine.

Again Levin felt, also, constraint with his brother from the fact that while he was in the country, and especially in the summer-time, he was all the time busy with his work on the estate. The days seemed to him too short for him to accomplish all that he wanted to do, while his brother was taking his ease. But, though Sergyeï Ivanovitch was enjoying his vacation, in other words, was not working at his writing, he was so used to intellectual activity, that he enjoyed expressing in beautiful, concise form the thoughts that occurred to him, and he liked to have some one listen to him. His most habitual and most natural auditor was his brother, and therefore, notwithstanding the friendly simplicity of their relations, Konstantin felt awkward to be alone with him. Sergyeï Ivanovitch liked to lie on the grass, in the sun, stretched out at full length, and to talk lazily.

"You would n't believe," he would say to his brother, "how I enjoy this tufted idleness. I have not an idea in my head; it is empty as a shell."

But Konstantin Levin quickly wearied of sitting down and hearing him talk—especially because he knew that in his absence they were spreading the manure on the unplowed field, and would be up to God knows what mischief, unless he should be on hand to superintend this work; he knew that they would not screw up the cutters in his plows, but would be taking them off and then