Anna Karenina
rye-beer, with cloths wrapped round them.
“Look’ee, the little emmets crawling!” he said, pointing to them, and
he shaded his eyes with his hand to look at the sun. They mowed two
more rows; the old man stopped.
“Come, master, dinner time!” he said briskly. And on reaching the
stream the mowers moved off across the lines of cut grass towards their
pile of coats, where the children who had brought their dinners were
sitting waiting for them. The peasants gathered into groups—those
further away under a cart, those nearer under a willow bush.
Levin sat down by them; he felt disinclined to go away.
All constraint with the master had disappeared long ago. The peasants
got ready for dinner. Some washed, the young lads bathed in the stream,
others made a place comfortable for a rest, untied their sacks of
bread, and uncovered the pitchers of rye-beer. The old man crumbled up
some bread in a cup, stirred it with the handle of a spoon, poured
water on it from the dipper, broke up some more bread, and having
seasoned it with salt, he turned to the east to say his prayer.
“Come, master, taste my sop,” said he, kneeling down before the cup.
The sop was so good that Levin gave up the idea of going home. He dined
with the old man, and talked to him about his family affairs, taking
the keenest interest in them, and told him about his own affairs and
all the circumstances that could be of interest to the old man. He felt
much nearer to him than to his brother, and could not help smiling at
the affection he felt for this man. When the old man got up again, said
his prayer, and lay down under a bush, putting some grass under his
head for a pillow, Levin did the same, and in spite of the clinging
flies that were so persistent in the sunshine, and the midges that
tickled his hot face and body, he fell asleep at once and only waked
when the sun had passed to the other side of the bush and reached him.
The old man had been awake a long while, and was sitting up whetting
the scythes of the younger lads.
Levin looked about him and hardly recognized the place, everything was
so changed. The immense stretch of meadow had been mown and was
sparkling with a peculiar fresh brilliance, with its lines of already
sweet-smelling grass in the slanting rays of the evening sun. And the
bushes about the river had been cut down, and the river itself, not
visible before, now gleaming like steel in its bends, and the moving,
ascending, peasants, and the sharp wall of grass of the unmown part of
the meadow, and the hawks hovering over the stripped meadow—all was
perfectly new. Raising himself, Levin began considering how much had
been cut and how much more could still be done that day.
The work done was exceptionally much for forty-two men. They had cut
the whole of the big meadow, which had, in the years of serf labor,
taken thirty scythes two days to mow. Only the corners remained to do,
where the rows were short. But Levin felt a longing to get as much
mowing done that day as possible, and was vexed with the sun sinking so
quickly in the sky. He felt no weariness; all he wanted was to get his
work done more and more quickly and as much done as possible.
“Could you cut Mashkin Upland too?—what do you think?” he said to the
old man.
“As God wills, the sun’s not high. A little vodka for the lads?”
At the afternoon rest, when they were sitting down again, and those who
smoked had lighted their pipes, the old man told the men that “Mashkin
Upland’s to be cut—there’ll be some vodka.”
“Why not cut it? Come on, Tit! We’ll look sharp! We can eat at night.
Come on!” cried voices, and eating up their bread, the mowers went back
to work.
“Come, lads, keep it up!” said Tit, and ran on ahead almost at a trot.
“Get along, get along!” said the old man, hurrying after him and easily
overtaking him, “I’ll mow you down, look out!”
And young and old mowed away, as though they were racing with one
another. But however fast they worked, they did not spoil the grass,
and the rows were laid just as neatly and exactly. The little piece
left uncut in the corner was mown in five minutes. The last of the
mowers were just ending their rows while the foremost snatched up their
coats onto their shoulders, and crossed the road towards Mashkin
Upland.
The sun was already sinking into the trees when they went with their
jingling dippers into the wooded ravine of Mashkin Upland. The grass
was up to their waists in the middle of the hollow, soft, tender, and
feathery, spotted here and there among the trees with wild
heart’s-ease.
After a brief consultation—whether to take the rows lengthwise or
diagonally—Prohor Yermilin, also a renowned mower, a huge, black-haired
peasant, went on ahead. He went up to the top, turned back again and
started mowing, and they all proceeded to form in line behind him,
going downhill through the hollow and uphill right up to the edge of
the forest. The sun sank behind the forest. The dew was falling by now;
the mowers were in the sun only on the hillside, but below, where a
mist was rising, and on the opposite side, they mowed into the fresh,
dewy shade. The work went rapidly. The grass cut with a juicy sound,
and was at once laid in high, fragrant rows. The mowers from all sides,
brought closer together in the short row, kept urging one another on to
the sound of jingling dippers and clanging scythes, and the hiss of the
whetstones sharpening them, and good-humored shouts.
Levin still kept between the young peasant and the old man. The old
man, who had put on his short sheepskin jacket, was just as
good-humored, jocose, and free in his movements. Among the trees they
were continually cutting with their scythes the so-called “birch
mushrooms,” swollen fat in the succulent grass. But the old man bent
down every time he came across a mushroom, picked it up and put it in
his bosom. “Another present for my old woman,” he said as he did so.
Easy as it was to mow the wet, soft grass, it was hard work going up
and down the steep sides of the ravine. But this did not trouble the
old man. Swinging his scythe just as ever, and moving his feet in their
big, plaited shoes with firm, little steps, he climbed slowly up the
steep place, and though his breeches hanging out below his smock, and
his whole frame trembled with effort, he did not miss one blade of
grass or one mushroom on his way, and kept making jokes with the
peasants and Levin. Levin walked after him and often thought he must
fall, as he climbed with a scythe up a steep cliff where it would have
been hard work to clamber without anything. But he climbed up and did
what he had to do. He felt as though some external force were moving
him.
Chapter 6
Mashkin Upland was mown, the last row finished, the peasants had put on
their coats and were gaily trudging home. Levin got on his horse and,
parting regretfully from the peasants, rode homewards. On the hillside
he looked back; he could not see them in the mist that had risen from
the valley; he could only hear rough, good-humored voices, laughter,
and the sound of clanking scythes.
Sergey Ivanovitch had long ago finished dinner, and was drinking iced
lemon and water in his own room, looking through the reviews and papers
which he had only just received by post, when Levin rushed into the
room, talking merrily, with his wet and matted hair sticking to his
forehead, and his back and chest grimed and moist.
“We mowed the whole meadow! Oh, it is nice, delicious! And how have you
been getting on?” said Levin, completely forgetting the disagreeable
conversation of the previous day.
“Mercy! what do you look like!” said Sergey Ivanovitch, for the first
moment looking round with some dissatisfaction. “And the door, do shut
the door!” he cried. “You must have let in a dozen at least.”
Sergey Ivanovitch could not endure flies, and in his own room he never
opened the window except at night, and carefully kept the door shut.
“Not one, on my honor. But if I have, I’ll catch them. You wouldn’t
believe what a pleasure it is! How have you spent the day?”
“Very well. But have you really been mowing the whole day? I expect
you’re as hungry as a wolf. Kouzma has got everything ready for you.”
“No, I don’t feel hungry even. I had something to eat there. But I’ll
go and wash.”
“Yes, go along, go along, and I’ll come to you directly,” said Sergey
Ivanovitch, shaking his head as he looked at his brother. “Go along,
make haste,” he added smiling, and gathering up his books, he prepared
to go too. He, too, felt suddenly good-humored and disinclined to leave
his brother’s side. “But what did you do while it was raining?”
“Rain? Why, there was scarcely a drop. I’ll come directly. So you had a
nice day too? That’s first-rate.” And Levin went off to change his
clothes.
Five minutes later the brothers met in the dining-room. Although it
seemed to Levin that he was not hungry, and he sat down to dinner
simply so as not to hurt Kouzma’s feelings, yet when he began to eat
the dinner struck him as extraordinarily good. Sergey Ivanovitch
watched him with a smile.
“Oh, by the way, there’s a letter for you,” said he. “Kouzma, bring it
down, please. And mind you shut the doors.”
The letter was from Oblonsky. Levin read it aloud. Oblonsky wrote to
him from Petersburg: “I have had a letter from Dolly; she’s at
Ergushovo, and everything seems going wrong there. Do ride over and see
her, please; help her with advice; you know all about it. She will be
so glad to see you. She’s quite alone, poor thing. My mother-in-law and
all of them are still abroad.”
“That’s capital! I will certainly ride over to her,” said Levin. “Or
we’ll go together. She’s such a splendid woman, isn’t she?”
“They’re not far from here, then?”
“Twenty-five miles. Or perhaps it is thirty. But a capital road.
Capital, we’ll drive over.”
“I shall be delighted,” said Sergey Ivanovitch, still smiling. The
sight of his younger brother’s appearance had immediately put him in a
good humor.
“Well, you have an appetite!” he said, looking at his dark-red,
sunburnt face and neck bent over the plate.
“Splendid! You can’t imagine what an effectual remedy it is for every
sort of foolishness. I want to enrich medicine with a new word:
_Arbeitskur_.”
“Well, but you don’t need it, I should fancy.”
“No, but for all sorts of nervous invalids.”
“Yes, it ought to be tried. I had meant to come to the mowing to look
at you, but it was so unbearably hot that I got no further than the
forest. I sat there a little, and went on by the forest to the village,
met your old nurse, and sounded her as to the peasants’ view of you. As
far as I can make out, they don’t approve of this. She said: ‘It’s not
a gentleman’s work.’ Altogether, I fancy that in the people’s ideas
there are very clear and definite notions of certain, as they call it,
‘gentlemanly’ lines of action. And they don’t sanction the gentry’s
moving outside bounds clearly laid down in their ideas.”
“Maybe so; but anyway it’s a pleasure such as I have never known in my
life. And there’s no harm in it, you know. Is there?” answered Levin.
“I can’t help it if they don’t like it. Though I do believe it’s all
right. Eh?”
“Altogether,” pursued Sergey Ivanovitch, “you’re satisfied with your
day?”
“Quite satisfied. We cut the whole meadow. And such a splendid old man
I made friends with there! You can’t fancy how delightful he was!”
“Well, so you’re content with your day. And so am I. First, I solved
two chess problems, and one a very pretty one—a pawn opening. I’ll show
it you. And then—I thought over our conversation yesterday.”
“Eh! our conversation yesterday?” said Levin, blissfully dropping his
eyelids and drawing deep breaths after finishing his dinner, and