consideration of five hundred roubles had investigated the management of their property, and found that it was costing them a loss of three thousand odd roubles. She did not remember the precise sum, but it appeared that the German had worked it out to the fraction of a farthing.
The gray-whiskered landowner smiled at the mention of the profits of Sviazhsky’s farming, obviously aware how much gain his neighbor and marshal was likely to be making.
“Possibly it does not pay,” answered Sviazhsky. “That merely proves either that I’m a bad manager, or that I’ve sunk my capital for the increase of my rents.”
“Oh, rent!” Levin cried with horror. “Rent there may be in Europe, where land has been improved by the labor put into it, but with us all the land is deteriorating from the labor put into it—in other words they’re working it out; so there’s no question of rent.”
“How no rent? It’s a law.”
“Then we’re outside the law; rent explains nothing for us, but simply muddles us. No, tell me how there can be a theory of rent? …”
“Will you have some junket? Masha, pass us some junket or raspberries.” He turned to his wife. “Extraordinarily late the raspberries are lasting this year.”
And in the happiest frame of mind Sviazhsky got up and walked off, apparently supposing the conversation to have ended at the very point when to Levin it seemed that it was only just beginning.
Having lost his antagonist, Levin continued the conversation with the gray-whiskered landowner, trying to prove to him that all the difficulty arises from the fact that we don’t find out the peculiarities and habits of