Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/357

 "Well, I see you are well satisfied with your day," replied Sergyeï Ivanovitch.

"Very well satisfied. We mowed the whole meadow, and I made such friends with an old man—the elder. You can't imagine how he pleased me."

"Well, you are satisfied with your day! So am I with mine. In the first place, I solved two chess problems, and one was a beauty—it opened with a pawn. I'll show it to you. And then—I thought of our last evening's discussion."

"What? Our last evening's discussion?" said Levin, half closing his eyes, and drawing a long breath with a sensation of comfort after his dinner, and really unable to recollect the subject of their discussion.

"I come to the conclusion that you are partly in the right. The discrepancy in our views lies in the fact that you assume personal interest as the motive power of our actions, while I claim that every man who has reached a certain stage of intellectual development must have for his motive the public interest. But you are probably right in saying that materially interested activity would be more to be desired. Your nature is, as the French say, primesautière . You want strong, energetic activity, or nothing."

Levin listened to his brother, but he did not understand him at all, and did not try to understand. His only fear was that his brother would ask him some question, by which it would become evident that he was not listening.

"How is this, my dear boy?" asked Sergyeï Ivanovitch, touching him on the shoulder.

"Yes, of course. But, then, I don't set much store on my own opinions," replied Levin, smiling like a guilty child. His thought was, "What was our discussion about? Of course; I am right, and he is right, and all is charming. But I must go the office and give my orders." He arose, stretching himself and smiling.

Sergyeï Ivanovitch also smiled.

"If you want to go out, let's go together," he said,