"Do you know, I’ve been thinking about you," said Sergey Ivanovitch. "It’s beyond everything what’s being done in the district, according to what this doctor tells me. He’s a very intelligent fellow. And as I’ve told you before, I tell you again: it’s not right for you not to go to the meetings, and altogether to keep out of the district business. If decent people won’t go into it, of course it’s bound to go all wrong. We pay the money, and it all goes in salaries, and there are no schools, nor district nurses, nor midwives, nor drugstores—nothing." "Well, I did try, you know," Levin said slowly and unwillingly. "I can’t! and so there’s no help for it." "But why can’t you? I must own I can’t make it out. Indifference, incapacity—I won’t admit; surely it’s not simply laziness?" "None of those things. I’ve tried, and I see I can do nothing," said...
Childhood, by Leo Tolstoy
Translated by C.J. Hogarth CONTENTS I THE TUTOR, KARL IVANITCH II MAMA III PAPA IV LESSONS V THE IDIOT VI PREPARATIONS FOR THE CHASE VII THE HUNT VIII WE PLAY GAMES IX A FIRST ESSAY IN LOVE X THE SORT OF MAN MY FATHER WAS XI IN THE DRAWING-ROOM AND THE STUDY XII GRISHA XIII NATALIA SAVISHNA XIV THE PARTING XV &n... (From : Gutenberg.org.)