436 437
afternoon. When the last of the hay had been divided, Levin, intrust-
ing the superintendence of the rest to the counting-house clerk, sat
down on a haycock marked off by a stake of willow, and looked admiringly
at the meadow swarming with peasants.
In front of him, in the bend of the river beyond the marsh, moved
a bright-colored line of peasant women, and the scattered hay was
being rapidly formed into gray winding rows over the pale green stubble.
After the women came the men with pitchforks, and from the gray
rows there were growing up broad, high, soft haycocks. To the left, carts
were rumbling over the meadow that had been already cleared, and
one after another the haycocks vanished, flung up in huge forkfuls, and
in their place there were rising heavy cartloads of fragrant hay hanging
over the horses’ hind-quarters.
“What weather for haying! What hay it’ll be!” said an old man,
squatting down beside Levin. “It’s tea, not hay! It’s like scattering
grain to the ducks, the way they pick it up!” he added, pointing to the
growing haycocks. “Since dinnertime they’ve carried a good half of it.”
“The last load, eh?” he shouted to a young peasant, who drove by,
standing in the front of an empty cart, shaking the cord reins.
“The last, dad!” the lad shouted back, pulling in the horse, and,
smiling, he looked round at a bright, rosy-checked peasant girl who sat
in the cart smiling too, and drove on.
“Who’s that? Your son?” asked Levin.
“My baby,” said the old man with a tender smile.
“What a fine fellow!”
“The lad’s all right.”
“Married already?”
“Yes, it’s two years last St. Philip’s day.”
“Any children?”
“Children indeed! Why, for over a year he was innocent as a babe
himself, and bashful too,” answered the old man. “Well, the hay! It’s as
fragrant as tea!” he repeated, wishing to change the subject.
Levin looked more attentively at Ivan Parmenov and his wife.
They were loading a haycock onto the cart not far from him. Ivan
Parmenov was standing on the cart, taking, laying in place, and stamp-
ing down the huge bundles of hay, which his pretty young wife deftly
handed up to him, at first in armfuls, and then on the pitchfork. The
young wife worked easily, merrily, and dexterously. The close-packed
hay did not once break away off her fork. First she gathered it together,
stuck the fork into it, then with a rapid, supple movement leaned the
whole weight of her body on it, and at once with a bend of her back
under the red belt she drew herself up, and arching her full bosom
under the white smock, with a smart turn swung the fork in her arms,
and flung the bundle of hay high onto the cart. Ivan, obviously doing
his best to save her every minute of unnecessary labor, made haste,
opening his arms to clutch the bundle and lay it in the cart. As she
raked together what was left of the hay, the young wife shook off the
bits of hay that had fallen on her neck, and straightening the red
kerchief that had dropped forward over her white brow, not browned
like her face by the sun, she crept under the cart to tie up the load. Ivan
directed her how to fasten the cord to the cross-piece, and at some-
thing she said he laughed aloud. In the expressions of both faces was
to be seen vigorous, young, freshly awakened love.