Anna Karenina

‘And how they are! You should have seen what went on at the station yesterday!’ said Katavasov, noisily crunching on a cucumber.

‘Well, how are we to understand that? For Christ’s sake, Sergei Ivanovich, explain to me where all these volunteers go, who are they fighting?’ asked the old prince, evidently continuing a conversation started without Levin.

‘The Turks,’ Sergei Ivanovich replied with a calm smile, having liberated the bee, dark with honey and helplessly waving its legs, and transferred it from the knife to a sturdy aspen leaf.

‘But who declared war on the Turks? Ivan Ivanych Ragozov and Countess Lydia Ivanovna, along with Mme Stahl?’

‘No one declared war, but people sympathize with the suffering of their neighbours and want to help them,’ said Sergei Ivanovich.

‘But the prince is not talking about help,’ said Levin, interceding for his father-in-law, ‘but about war. The prince is saying that private persons cannot take part in a war without the permission of the government.’

‘Kostya, look, it’s a bee! We’ll really get stung!’ said Dolly, waving away a wasp.

‘It’s not a bee, it’s a wasp,’ said Levin.

‘Well, sir, what’s your theory?’ Katavasov said to Levin with a smile, obviously challenging him to an argument. ‘Why do private persons not have the right?’

‘My theory is this. On the one hand, war is such a beastly, cruel and terrible thing that no man, to say nothing of a Christian, can personally take upon himself the responsibility for starting a war. That can only be done by a government, which is called to it and is inevitably drawn into war. On the other hand, according to both science and common sense, in state matters, especially the matter of war, citizens renounce their personal will.’

Sergei Ivanovich and Katavasov began talking simultaneously with ready-made objections.

‘That’s the hitch, my dear, that there may be occasions when the government does not carry out the will of the citizens, and then society declares its will,’ said Katavasov.

But Sergei Ivanovich obviously did not approve of this objection. He frowned at Katavasov’s words and said something different.

‘The question shouldn’t be put that way. There is no declaration of war here, but simply the expression of human, Christian feeling. They’re killing our brothers, of the same blood, of the same religion. Well, suppose they weren’t even our brothers, our co-religionists, but simply children, women, old men; indignation is aroused, and the Russian people run to help stop these horrors. Imagine yourself going down the street and seeing some drunk beating a woman or a child, I don’t think you’d start asking whether war had or had not been declared on the man, but would fall upon him and protect the victim.’

‘But I wouldn’t kill him,’ said Levin.

‘Yes, you would.’

‘I don’t know. If I saw it, I would yield to my immediate feeling, but I can’t say beforehand. And there is not and cannot be such an immediate feeling about the oppression of the Slavs.’

‘Maybe not for you. But for others there is,’ said Sergei Ivanovich, with a frown of displeasure. ‘There are stories alive among the people about Orthodox Christians suffering under the yoke of the “infidel Hagarenes”.⁹ The people heard about their brothers’ suffering and spoke out.’

‘Maybe so,’ Levin said evasively, ‘but I don’t see it. I’m the people myself, and I don’t feel it.’

‘Neither do I,’ said the prince. ‘I was living abroad and reading the newspapers, and I confess, before the Bulgarian atrocities I simply couldn’t understand why the Russians all suddenly loved their brother Slavs so much, while I felt no love for them. I was very upset, thought I was a monster, or that Karlsbad affected me that way. But I came here and was reassured - I see there are people interested just in Russia and not in our brother Slavs. Konstantin for one.’

‘Personal opinions mean nothing here,’ said Sergei Ivanovich. ‘It’s no matter of personal opinions when all Russia - the people - has expressed its will.’

‘Forgive me. I just don’t see that. The people know nothing about it,’ said the prince.

‘No, papa ... how could they not? What about Sunday in church?’ said Dolly, who was listening to the conversation. ‘Give me a napkin, please,’ she said to the old man, who was looking at the children with a smile. ‘It can’t be that everybody ...’

‘And what about Sunday in church? The priest was told to read it. He read it. They understood nothing, sighed, as they do at every sermon,’ the prince went on. ‘Then they were told the church would take up a collection for a charitable cause, and so they each got out a kopeck and gave. But for what, they themselves didn’t know.’

‘The people cannot help knowing. A consciousness of their destiny always exists among the people, and in such moments as the present it becomes clear to them,’ Sergei Ivanovich said, glancing at the old beekeeper.