Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/788

 "Agreed, but it is work in this sense, that it is a form of activity which gives us results—railways. But perhaps you argue that railways are useless."

"No; but that is another question. I am willing to acknowledge that they are useful. But all gains that are disproportionate to the amount of labor expended are dishonorable."

"But who is to determine the suitability?"

"Property acquired by any dishonest way, by craft," said Levin, feeling that he could not very well make the distinction between honorable and dishonorable. "For example, the money made by stock-gambling," he went on to say, "that is bad, and so are the gains made by fortunes acquired without labor, as it used to be with the speculators in monopolies; only the form has been changed. Le roi est mort, vive le roi! We had only just done away with brandy-farming when the railways and stock-gambling came in; it is all money acquired without work."

"Yes, that may be very wise and ingenious reasoning.—Lie down, Krak," cried Stepan Arkadyevitch, addressing the dog, which was licking his fur and tossing up the hay. Oblonsky was evidently convinced of the correctness of his theory, and consequently argued calmly and dispassionately. "But you do not make the distinctions clear between honest and dishonest work. Is it dishonest when I receive a higher salary than my head clerk, although he understands the business better than I do?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I will tell you one thing: what you receive for your work on yout estate is—let us say—five thousand above your expenses; but this muzhik, our host, hard as he works, does not get more than fifty rubles, and this disparity is just as dishonorable as that I receive more than my head clerk or that Malthus receives more than a railway engineer. On the contrary, it seems to me that the hostility shown by society to these men arises from envy." ....

"No, that is unjust," said Veslovsky; "it cannot be