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"...dies without help? The ignorant peasant-women starve the

children, and the people stagnate in darkness, and are helpless

in the hands of every village clerk, while you have at your

disposal a means of helping them, and don't help them because to

your mind it's of no importance."

And Sergey Ivanovitch put before him the alternative: either you

are so undeveloped that you can't see all that you can do, or you

won't sacrifice your ease, your vanity, or whatever it is, to do

it.

Konstantin Levin felt that there was no course open to him but to

submit, or to confess to a lack of zeal for the public good. And

this mortified him and hurt his feelings.

"It's both," he said resolutely: "I don't see that it was

possible...."

"What! was it impossible, if the money were properly laid out, to

provide medical aid?"