384 385
in ear, though its ears are still light, not yet full, and it waves in gray-
green billows in the wind; when the green oats, with tufts of yellow
grass scattered here and there among it, droop irregularly over the late-
sown fields; when the early buckwheat is already out and hiding the
ground; when the fallow lands, trodden hard as stone by the cattle, are
half ploughed over, with paths left untouched by the plough; when
from the dry dung-heaps carted onto the fields there comes at sunset
a smell of manure mixed with meadow-sweet, and on the low-lying
lands the riverside meadows are a thick sea of grass waiting for the
mowing, with blackened heaps of the stalks of sorrel among it.
It was the time when there comes a brief pause in the toil of the
fields before the beginning of the labors of harvest—every year recur-
ring, every year straining every nerve of the peasants. The crop was a
splendid one, and bright, hot summer days had set in with short, dewy
nights.
The brothers had to drive through the woods to reach the mead-
ows. Sergey Ivanovitch was all the while admiring the beauty of the
woods, which were a tangled mass of leaves, pointing out to his brother
now an old lime tree on the point of flowering, dark on the shady side,
and brightly spotted with yellow stipules, now the young shoots of this
year’s saplings brilliant with emerald. Konstantin Levin did not like
talking and hearing about the beauty of nature. Words for him took
away the beauty of what he saw. He assented to what his brother said,
but he could not help beginning to think of other things. When they
came out of the woods, all his attention was engrossed by the view of
the fallow land on the upland, in parts yellow with grass, in parts
trampled and checkered with furrows, in parts dotted with ridges of
dung, and in parts even ploughed. A string of carts was moving across
it. Levin counted the carts, and was pleased that all that were wanted
had been brought, and at the sight of the meadows his thoughts passed
to the mowing. He always felt something special moving him to the
quick at the hay-making. On reaching the meadow Levin stopped the
horse.
The morning dew was still lying on the thick undergrowth of the
grass, and that he might not get his feet wet, Sergey Ivanovitch asked
his brother to drive him in the trap up to the willow tree from which the
carp was caught. Sorry as Konstantin Levin was to crush down his
mowing grass, he drove him into the meadow. The high grass softly
turned about the wheels and the horse’s legs, leaving its seeds clinging
to the wet axles and spokes of the wheels. His brother seated himself
under a bush, arranging his tackle, while Levin led the horse away,
fastened him up, and walked into the vast gray-green sea of grass
unstirred by the wind. The silky grass with its ripe seeds came almost
to his waist in the dampest spots.
Crossing the meadow, Konstantin Levin came out onto the road,
and met an old man with a swollen eye, carrying a skep on his shoulder.
“What? taken a stray swarm, Fomitch?” he asked.
“No, indeed, Konstantin Mitritch! All we can do to keep our own!
This is the second swarm that has flown away.... Luckily the lads
caught them. They were ploughing your field. They unyoked the
horses and galloped after them.”
“Well, what do you say, Fomitch—start mowing or wait a bit?”
“Eh, well. Our way’s to wait till St. Peter’s Day. But you always
mow sooner. Well, to be sure, please God, the hay’s good. There’ll be
plenty for the beasts.”
“What do you think about the weather?”
“That’s in God’s hands. Maybe it will be fine.”
Levin went up to his brother.