"No, that's unfair," said Veslovsky; "how could envy come in?
There is something not nice about that sort of business."

"You say," Levin went on, "that it's unjust for me to receive
five thousand, while the peasant has fifty; that's true. It is
unfair, and I feel it, but..."

"It really is. Why is it we spend our time riding, drinking,
shooting, doing nothing, while they are forever at work?" said
Vassenka Veslovsky, obviously for the first time in his life
reflecting on the question, and consequently considering it with
perfect sincerity.

"Yes, you feel it, but you don't give him your property," said
Stepan Arkadyevitch, intentionally, as it seemed, provoking
Levin.

There had arisen of late something like a secret antagonism
between the two brothers-in-law; as though, since they had
married sisters, a kind of rivalry had sprung up between them as
to which was ordering his life best, and now this hostility
showed itself in the conversation, as it began to take a personal
note.

"I don't give it away, because no one demands that from me, and
if I wanted to, I could not give it away," answered Levin, "and
have no one to give it to."

"Give it to this peasant, he would not refuse it."

"Yes, but how am I to give it up? Am I to go to him and make a
deed of conveyance?"

"I don't know; but if you are convinced that you have no
right..."

"I'm not at all convinced. On the contrary, I feel I have no
right to give it up, that I have duties both to the land and to
my family."

"No, excuse me, but if you consider this inequality is unjust,
why is it you don't act accordingly?..."

"Well, I do act negatively on that idea, so far as not trying to
increase the difference of position existing between him and me."

"No, excuse me, that's a paradox."

"Yes, there's something of a sophistry about that," Veslovsky
agreed. "Ah! our host; so you're not asleep yet?" he said to the
peasant who came into the barn, opening the creaking door. "How
is it you're not asleep?"

"No, how's one to sleep! I thought our gentlemen would be
asleep, but I heard them chattering. I want to get a hook from
here. She won't bite?" he added, stepping cautiously with his
bare feet.

"And where are you going to sleep?"

"We are going out for the night with the beasts."

"Ah, what a night!" said Veslovsky, looking out at the edge of
the hut and the unharnessed wagonette that could be seen in the
faint light of the evening gl