Anna Karenina | Leo Tolstoy

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.’
Konstantin Levin spoke as though the floodgates of his
speech had burst open. Sergey Ivanovitch smiled.
‘But tomorrow it’ll be your turn to be tried; would it
have suited your tastes better to be tried in the old
criminal tribunal?’
‘I’m not going to be tried. I shan’t murder anybody,
and I’ve no need of it. Well, I tell you what,’ he went on,
flying off again to a subject quite beside the point, ‘our
district self-government and all the rest of it—it’s just like
the birch branches we stick in the ground on Trinity Day,
for instance, to look like a copse which has grown up of
itself in Europe, and I can’t gush over these birch branches
and believe in them.’
Sergey Ivanovitch merely shrugged his shoulders, as
though to express his wonder how the birch branches had
come into their argument at that point, though he did
really understand at once what his brother meant.
‘Excuse me, but you know one really can’t argue in
that way,’ he observed.
But Konstantin Levin wanted to justify himself for the
failing, of which he was conscious, of lack of zeal for the
public welfare, and he went on.
‘I imagine,’ he said, ‘that no sort of activity is likely to
be lasting if it is not founded on self-interest, that’s a
universal principle, a philosophical principle,’ he said,
repeating the word ‘philosophical’ with determination, as
though wishing to show that he had as much right as any
one else to talk of philosophy.
Sergey Ivanovitch smiled. ‘He too has a philosophy of
his own at the service of his natural tendencies,’ he
thought.
‘Come, you’d better let philosophy alone,’ he said.
‘The chief problem of the philosophy of all ages consists
just in finding the indispensable connection which exists
between individual and social interests. But that’s not to
the point; what is to the point is a correction I must make
in your comparison. The birches are not simply stuck in,
but some are sown and some are planted, and one must
deal carefully with them. It’s only those peoples that have
an intuitive sense of what’s of importance and significance
in their institutions, and know how to value them, that
have a future before them—it’s only those peoples that
one can truly call historical.’
And Sergey Ivanovitch carried the subject into the
regions of philosophical history where Konstantin Levin
could not follow him, and showed him all the
incorrectness of his view.
‘As for your dislike of it, excuse my saying so, that’s
simply our Russian sloth and old serf-owner’s ways, and
I’m convinced that in you it’s a temporary error and will
pass.’
Konstantin was silent. He felt himself vanquished on all
sides, but he felt at the same time that what he wanted to
say was unintelligible to his brother. Only he could not
make up his mind whether it was unintelligible because he
was not capable of expressing his meaning clearly, or
because his brother would not or could not understand
him. But he did not pursue the speculation, and without
replying, he fell to musing on a quite different and
personal matter.
Sergey Ivanovitch wound up the last line, untied the
horse, and they drove off.
Chapter 4
The personal matter that absorbed Levin during his
conversation with his brother was this. Once in a previous
year he had gone to look at the mowing, and being made
very angry by the bailiff he had recourse to his favorite
means for regaining his temper,— he took a scythe from a
peasant and began mowing.
He liked the work so much that he had several times
tried his hand at mowing since. He had cut the whole of
the meadow in front of his house, and this year ever since
the early spring he had cherished a plan for mowing for
whole days together with the peasants. Ever since his
brother’s arrival, he had been in doubt whether to mow or
not. He was loath to leave his brother alone all day long,
and he was afraid his brother would laugh at him about it.
But as he drove into the meadow, and recalled the
sensations of mowing, he came near deciding that he
would go mowing. After the irritating discussion with his
brother, he pondered over this intention again.
‘I must have physical exercise, or my temper’ll certainly
be ruined,’ he thought, and he determined he would go
mowing, however awkward he might feel about it with
his brother or the peasants.
Towards evening Konstantin Levin went to his
counting house, gave directions as to the work to be done,
and sent about the village to summon the mowers for the
morrow, to cut the hay in Kalinov meadow, the largest
and best of his grass lands.
‘And send my scythe, please, to Tit, for him to set it,
and bring it round tomorrow. I shall maybe do some
mowing myself too,’ he said trying not to be embarrassed.
The bailiff smiled and said: ‘Yes, sir.’
At tea the same evening Levin said to his brother:
‘I fancy the fine weather will last. Tomorrow I shall
start mowing.’
‘I’m so fond of that form of field labor,’ said Sergey
Ivanovitch.
‘I’m awfully fond of it. I sometimes mow myself with
the peasants, and tomorrow I want to try mowing the
whole day.’
Sergey Ivanovitch lifted his head, and looked with
interest at his brother.
‘How do you mean? Just like one of the peasants, all
day long?’
‘Yes, it’s very pleasant,’ said Levin.
‘It’s splendid as exercise, only you’ll hardly be able to
stand it,’ said Sergey Ivanovitch, without a shade of irony.
‘I’ve tried it. It’s hard work at first, but you get into it.
I dare say I shall manage to keep it up..’
‘Really! what an idea! But tell me, how do the peasants
look at it? I suppose they laugh in their sleeves at their
master’s being such a queer fish?’
‘No, I don’t think so; but it’s so delightful, and at the
same time such hard work, that one has no time to think
about it.’
‘But how will you do about dining with them? To
send you a bottle of Lafitte and roast turkey out there
would be a little awkward.’
‘No, I’ll simply come home at the time of their
noonday rest.’
Next morning Konstantin Levin got up earlier than
usual, but he was detained giving directions on the farm,
and when he reached the mowing grass the mowers were
already at their second row.
From the uplands he could get a view of the shaded cut
part of the meadow below, with its grayish ridges of cut
grass, and the black heaps of coats, taken off by the
mowers at the place from which they had started cutting.
Gradually, as he rode towards the meadow, the peasants
came into sight, some in coats, some in their shirts
mowing, one behind another in a long string, swinging
their scythes differently. He counted forty-two of them.
They were mowing slowly over the uneven, low-lying
parts of the meadow, where there had been an old dam.
Levin recognized some of his own men. Here was old
Yermil in a very long white smock, bending forward to
swing a scythe; there was a young fellow, Vaska, who had
been a coachman of Levin’s, taking every row with a wide
sweep. Here, too, was Tit, Levin’s preceptor in the art of
mowing, a thin little peasant. He was in front of all, and
cut his wide row without bending, as though playing with
the scythe.
Levin got off his mare, and fastening her up by the
roadside went to meet Tit, who took a second scythe out
of a bush and gave it to him.
‘It’s ready, sir; it’s like a razor, cuts of itself,’ said Tit,
taking off his cap with a smile and giving him the scythe.
Levin took the scythe, and began trying it. As they
finished their rows, the mowers, hot and good-humored,
came out into the road one after another, and, laughing a
little, greeted the master. They all stared at him, but no
one made any remark, till a tall old man, with a wrinkled,
beardless face, wearing a short sheepskin jacket, came out
into the road and accosted him.
‘Look’ee now, master, once take hold of the rope
there’s no letting it go!’ he said, and Levin heard
smothered laughter among the mowers.
‘I’ll try not to let it go,’ he said, taking his stand behind
Tit, and waiting for the time to begin.
‘Mind’ee,’ repeated the old man.
Tit made room, and Levin started behind him. The
grass was short close to the road, and Levin, who had not
done any mowing for a long while, and was disconcerted
by the eyes fastened upon him, cut badly for the first
moments, though he swung his scythe vigorously. Behind
him he heard voices:
‘It’s not set right; handle’s too high; see how he has to
stoop to it,’ said one.
‘Press more on the heel,’ said another.
‘Never mind, he’ll get on all right,’ the old man
resumed.
‘He’s made a start.... You swing it too wide, you’ll tire
yourself out.... The master, sure, does his best for himself!
But see the grass missed out! For such work us fellows
would catch it!’
The grass became softer, and Levin, listening without
answering, followed Tit, trying to do the best he could.
They moved a hundred paces. Tit kept moving on,
without stopping, not showing the slightest weariness, but
Levin was already beginning to be afraid he would not be
able to keep it up: he was so tired.
He felt as he swung his scythe that he was at the very
end of his strength, and was making up his mind to ask Tit
to stop. But at that very moment Tit stopped of his own
accord, and stooping down picked up some grass, rubbed
his scythe, and began whetting it. Levin straightened
himself, and drawing a deep breath looked round. Behind
him came a peasant, and he too was evidently tired, for he
stopped at once without waiting to mow up to Levin, and
began whetting his scythe. Tit sharpened his scythe and
Levin’s, and they went on. The next time it was just the
same. Tit moved on with sweep after sweep of his scythe,
not stopping or showing signs of weariness. Levin
followed him, trying not to get left behind, and he found
it harder and harder: the moment came when he felt he
had no strength left, but at that very moment Tit stopped
and whetted the scythes.
So they mowed the first row. And this long row
seemed particularly hard work to Levin; but when the end
was reached and Tit, shouldering his scythe, began with
deliberate stride returning on the tracks left by his heels in
the cut grass, and Levin walked back in the same way over
the space he had cut, in spite of the sweat that ran in
streams over his face and fell in drops down his nose, and
drenched his back as though he had been soaked in water,
he felt very happy. What delighted him particularly was
that now he knew he would be able to hold out.
His pleasure was only disturbed by his row not being
well cut. ‘I will swing less with my arm and more with my
whole body,’ he thought, comparing Tit’s row, which
looked as if it had been cut with a line, with his own
unevenly and irregularly lying grass.
The first row, as Levin noticed, Tit had mowed
specially quickly, probably wishing to put his master to the
test, and the row happened to be a long one. The next
rows were easier, but still Levin had to strain every nerve
not to drop behind the peasants.
He thought of nothing, wished for nothing, but not to
be left behind the peasants, and to do his work as well as
possible. He heard nothing but the swish of scythes, and
saw before him Tit’s upright figure mowing away, the
crescent-shaped curve of the cut grass, the grass and flower
heads slowly and rhythmically falling before the blade of
his scythe, and ahead of him the end of the row, where
would come the rest.
Suddenly, in the midst of his toil, without
understanding what it was or whence it came, he felt a
pleasant sensation of chill on his hot, moist shoulders. He
glanced at the sky in the interval for whetting the scythes.
A heavy, lowering storm cloud had blown up, and big
raindrops were falling. Some of the peasants went to their
coats and put them on; others—just like Levin himself—
merely shrugged their shoulders, enjoying the pleasant
coolness of it.
Another row, and yet another row, followed—long
rows and short rows, with good grass and with poor grass.
Levin lost all sense of time, and could not have told
whether it was late or early now. A change began to come
over his work, which gave him immense satisfaction. In
the midst of his toil there were moments during which he
forgot what he was doing, and it came all easy to him, and
at those same moments his row was almost as smooth and
well cut as Tit’s. But so soon as he recollected what he
was doing, and began trying to do better, he was at once
conscious of all the difficulty of his task, and the row was
badly mown.
On finishing yet another row he would have gone back
to the top of the meadow again to begin the next, but Tit
stopped, and going up to the old man said something in a
low voice to him. They both looked at the sun. ‘What are
they talking about, and why doesn’t he go back?’ thought
Levin, not guessing that the peasants had been mowing no
less than four hours without stopping, and it was time for
their lunch.
‘Lunch, sir,’ said the old man.
‘Is it really time? That’s right; lunch, then.’
Levin gave his scythe to Tit, and together with the
peasants, who were crossing the long stretch of mown
grass, slightly sprinkled with rain, to get their bread from
the heap of coats, he went towards his house. Only then
he suddenly awoke to the fact that he had been wrong
about the weather and the rain was drenching his hay.
‘The hay will be spoiled,’ he said.
‘Not a bit of it, sir; mow in the rain, and you’ll rake in
fine weather!’ said the old man.
Levin untied his horse and rode home to his coffee.
Sergey Ivanovitch was only just getting up. When he had
drunk his coffee, Levin rode back again to the mowing
before Sergey Ivanovitch had had time to dress and come
down to the dining room.
Chapter 5
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 anyone 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 fresh water of the stream, ladled out
a little in a tin dipper, and 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.