lonsky, of course, goes out of _bonhomie_, but other people say:
'Well, Oblonsky stays with them.'..."

"Not a bit of it." Levin could hear that Oblonsky was smiling as
he spoke. "I simply don't consider him more dishonest than any
other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They've all made their money
alike--by their work and their intelligence."

"Oh, by what work? Do you call it work to get hold of
concessions and speculate with them?"

"Of course it's work. Work in this sense, that if it were not
for him and others like him, there would have been no railways."

"But that's not work, like the work of a peasant or a learned
profession."

"Granted, but it's work in the sense that his activity produces a
result--the railways. But of course you think the railways
useless."

"No, that's another question; I am prepared to admit that
they're useful. But all profit that is out of proportion to the
labor expended is dishonest."

"But who is to define what is proportionate?"

"Making profit by dishonest means, by trickery," said Levin,
conscious that he could not draw a distinct line between honesty
and dishonesty. "Such as banking, for instance," he went on.
"It's an evil--the amassing of huge fortunes without labor, just
the same thing as with the spirit monopolies, it's only the form
that's changed. _Le roi est mort, vive le roi_. No sooner were
the spirit monopolies abolished than the railways came up, and
banking companies; that, too, is profit without work."

"Yes, that may all be very true and clever.... Lie down, Krak!"
Stepan Arkadyevitch called to his dog, who was scratching and
turning over all the hay. He was obviously convinced of the
correctness of his position, and so talked serenely and without
haste. "But you have not drawn the line between honest and
dishonest work. That I receive a bigger salary than my chief
clerk, though he knows more about the work than I do--that's
dishonest, I suppose?"

"I can't say."

"Well, but I can tell you: your receiving some five thousand,
let's say, for your work on the land, while our host, the peasant
here, however hard he works, can never get more than fifty
roubles, is just as dishonest as my earning more than my chief
clerk, and Malthus getting more than a station-master. No, quite
the contrary; I see that society takes up a sort of antagonistic
attitude to these people, which is utterly baseless, and I fancy
there's envy at the bottom of it...."