as a quite special view of the land,
different from that of other people; and to support this
proposition he made haste to add that in his opinion this
attitude of the Russian peasant was due to the consciousness of
his vocation to people vast unoccupied expanses in the East.

"One may easily be led into error in basing any conclusion on the
general vocation of a people," said Metrov, interrupting Levin.
"The condition of the laborer will always depend on his relation
to the land and to capital."

And without letting Levin finish explaining his idea, Metrov
began expounding to him the special point of his own theory.

In what the point of his theory lay, Levin did not understand,
because he did not take the trouble to understand. He saw that
Metrov, like other people, in spite of his own article, in which
he had attacked the current theory of political economy, looked
at the position of the Russian peasant simply from the point of
view of capital, wages, and rent. He would indeed have been
obliged to admit that in the eastern--much the larger--part of
Russia rent was as yet nil, that for nine-tenths of the eighty
millions of the Russian peasants wages took the form simply of
food provided for themselves, and that capital does not so far
exist except in the form of the most primitive tools. Yet it was
only from that point of view that he considered every laborer,
though in many points he differed from the economists and had his
own theory of the wage-fund, which he expounded to Levin.

Levin listened reluctantly, and at first made objections. He
would have liked to interrupt Metrov, to explain his own thought,
which in his opinion would have rendered further exposition of
Metrov's theories superfluous. But later on, feeling convinced
that they looked at the matter so differently, that they could
never understand one another, he did not even oppose his
statements, but simply listened. Although what Metrov was saying
was by now utterly devoid of interest for him, he yet experienced
a certain satisfaction in listening to him. It flattered his
vanity that such a learned man should explain his ideas to him so
eagerly, with such intensity and confidence in Levin's
understanding of the subject, sometimes with a mere hint
referring him to a whole aspect of the subject. He put this down
to his own credit, unaware that Metrov, who had already discussed
his theory over and over again with all his intimate friends,
ta