Living without knowing why

Asking what he is and why he lives drives Levin to despair; leaving off the question, he acts unfalteringly. Back in the country in June he is taken up by husbandry, his sister's and brother's affairs, his wife and baby, and a new enthusiasm for beekeeping. He no longer justifies any of it by public utility, his earlier schemes for the general welfare having disenchanted him, but does it because it seems he must. Work for humanity was pleasant to contemplate and unsatisfying to perform; now, living for himself, he takes no joy in the thought but sees the work is necessary. Like a ploughshare he cuts deeper and cannot get out without turning the sod: the patrimony must be kept so his son will thank him as he thanked his grandfather. He knows the particulars — hire cheaply but never bond men with advances; sell straw but close the public-house; lend Peter money against the usurer's ten per cent a month but never postpone rents; dock the man who went home for his father's death, and keep paying the useless old serfs. Not knowing whether he acts well, he feels an infallible judge in his soul, and fears suicide while cutting his path.

Tolstoy sets the answer down in full a chapter before Levin recognises it, and disguises it as estate management: a long list of decisions, each with its exception, none derivable from any theory he holds. The infallible judge is named here without being believed in. The closing sentence holds both halves together — afraid of suicide, cutting his path firmly — and refuses to resolve them yet.