Having finished all his business, soaked through with the streams
of water which kept running down the leather behind his neck and
his gaiters, but in the keenest and most confident temper, Levin
returned homewards in the evening. The weather had become worse
than ever towards evening; the hail lashed the drenched mare so
cruelly that she went along sideways, shaking her head and ears;
but Levin was all right under his hood, and he looked cheerfully
about him at the muddy streams running under the wheels, at the
drops hanging on every bare twig, at the whiteness of the patch
of unmelted hailstones on the planks of the bridge, at the thick
layer of still juicy, fleshy leaves that lay heaped up about the
stripped elm-tree. In spite of the gloominess of nature around
him, he felt peculiarly eager. The talks he had been having with
the peasants in the further village had shown that they were
beginning to get used to their new position. The old servant to
whose hut he had gone to get dry evidently approved of Levin's
plan, and of his own accord proposed to enter the partnership by
the purchase of cattle.

"I have only to go stubbornly on towards my aim, and I shall
attain my end," thought Levin; "and it's something to work and
take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually;
the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole
system of culture, the chief element in the condition of the
people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty,
general prosperity and content; instead of hostility, harmony and
unity of interests. In short, a bloodless revolution, but a
revolution of the greatest magnitude, beginning in the little
circle of our district, then the province, then Russia, the whole
world. Because a just idea cannot but be fruitful. Yes, it's an
aim worth working for. And its being me, Kostya Levin, who went
to a ball in a black tie, and was refused by the Shtcherbatskaya
girl, and who was intrinsically such a pitiful, worthless
creature--that proves nothing; I feel sure Franklin felt just as
worthless, and he too had no faith in himself, thinking of
himself as a whole. That means nothing. And he too, most
likely, had an Agafea Mihalovna to whom he confided his secrets."