________________________________________________
_ After lunch Levin was not in the same place in the string of
mowers as before, but stood between the old man who had accosted
him jocosely, and now invited him to be his neighbor, and a young
peasant, who had only been married in the autumn, and who was
mowing this summer for the first time.
The old man, holding himself erect, moved in front, with his feet
turned out, taking long, regular strides, and with a precise and
regular action which seemed to cost him no more effort than
swinging one's arms in walking, as though it were in play, he
laid down the high, even row of grass. It was as though it were
not he but the sharp scythe of itself swishing through the juicy
grass.
Behind Levin came the lad Mishka. His pretty, boyish face, with a
twist of fresh grass bound round his hair, was all working with
effort; but whenever any one looked at him he smiled. He would
clearly have died sooner than own it was hard work for him.
Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing
did not seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which
he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back,
his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and
dogged energy to his labor; and more and more often now came
those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to
think what one was doing. The scythe cut of itself. These were
happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they
reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old man rubbed
his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in
the fre offered Levin a drink.
"What do you say to my home-brew, eh? Good, eh?" said he,
winking.
And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm
water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from
the tin dipper. And immediately after this came the delicious,
slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could
wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look
about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening
around in the forest and the country.
The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of
unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the
scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and
consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without
thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of
itself. These were the most blissful moments.
It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which
had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a
hillock or a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a
hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the
heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the
hillock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did
this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view:
at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to
Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe,
then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just
under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and
lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin
and threw it away.
For both Levin and the young peasant behind him, such changes of
position were difficult. Both of them, repeating over and over
again the same strained movement, were in a perfect frenzy of
toil, and were incapable of shifting their position and at the
same time watching what was before them.
Levin did not notice how time was passing. If he had been asked
how long he had been working he would have said half an hour--and
it was getting on for dinner-time. As they were walking back over
the cut grass, the old man called Levin's attention to the little
girls and boys who were coming from different directions, hardly
visible through the long grass, and along the road towards the
mowers, carrying sacks of bread dragging at their little hands
and pitchers of the sour 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, arid
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 sharpl 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 dipper 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 cliffwhere 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. _
Read next: Part Three: Chapter 6
Read previous: Part Three: Chapter 4
Table of content of Anna Karenina
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
