Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/336

 "Well, all is in the hand of God. Maybe the weather will hold."

Levin returned to his brother.

Though he had caught nothing, Sergyeï Ivanovitch was undisturbed, and seemed in the best of spirits. Levin saw that he was stimulated by his talk with the doctor, and that he was eager to go on talking. Levin, on the contrary, was anxious to get back to the house as soon as possible to give some orders about hiring mowers for the next day, and to decide the question about the haymaking which occupied all his thoughts. "Well," said he, "shall we go?"

"What is your hurry? Do let us sit down. But how drenched you are! .... No, I have had no luck, but I have enjoyed it all the same. All outdoor sports are beautiful because you have to do with nature. Now just notice how charming that steely water is!" he exclaimed.

"These meadow banks," he went on to say, "always remind me of an enigma, do you know?—'The grass says to the river, "We have strayed far enough, we have strayed far enough,"'"

"I don't know that riddle," interrupted Konstantin, in a melancholy tone.

CHAPTER III

" you know, I was thinking about you," said Sergyeï Ivanovitch. "It is not well at all, what is going on in your district, if that doctor tells the truth; he is not a stupid fellow. And I have told you all along, and I say to-day, you are wrong in not going to the assembly-meetings and in generally holding aloof from the affairs of the commune. If men of standing don't take an interest in affairs, God knows how things will turn out. The taxes we pay will be spent in salaries, and not for schools, or hospitals, or midwives, or pharmacies, or anything."

"But I have tried it," replied Levin, faintly and