he novel, a way to live that transcends the demands of reality. In the folk culture of the peasants that he encountered near the very beginning of the novel, he finds the peasant Theodore who understands Levin's need to leave the mundane, to live not for his belly, but for "Truth," a goodness that is beyond the chain of cause and effect that so binds the other characters in the novel -- Dolly, for example, who, unable to apply reason outside of pragmatic thought to her life, continues to live, pathetically, with her unfaithful husband....
