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Chapter 25.
In the Surovsky district there was no railway nor service of post
horses, and Levin drove there with his own horses in his big, old-
fashioned carriage.
He stopped halfway at a well-to-do peasant’s to feed his horses. A
bald, well-preserved old man, with a broad, red beard, gray on his
cheeks, opened the gate, squeezing against the gatepost to let the
three horses pass. Directing the coachman to a place under the shed in
the big, clean, tidy yard, with charred, old-fashioned ploughs in it, the
old man asked Levin to come into the parlor. A cleanly dressed young
woman, with clogs on her bare feet, was scrubbing the floor in the new
outer room. She was frightened of the dog, that ran in after Levin, and
uttered a shriek, but began laughing at her own fright at once when
she was told the dog would not hurt her. Pointing Levin with her bare
arm to the door into the parlor, she bent down again, hiding her hand-
some face, and went on scrubbing.
“Would you like the samovar?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
The parlor was a big room, with a Dutch stove, and a screen divid-
ing it into two. Under the holy pictures stood a table painted in pat-
terns, a bench, and two chairs. Near the entrance was a dresser full of
crockery. The shutters were closed, there were few flies, and it was so
clean that Levin was anxious that Laska, who had been running along
the road and bathing in puddles, should not muddy the floor, and
ordered her to a place in the corner by the door. After looking round
the parlor, Levin went out in the back yard. The good-looking young
woman in clogs, swinging the empty pails on the yoke, ran on before
him to the well for water.
“Look sharp, my girl!” the old man shouted after her, good-
humoredly, and he went up to Levin. “Well, sir, are you going to
Nikolay Ivanovitch Sviazhsky? His honor comes to us too,” he began,
chatting, leaning his elbows on the railing of the steps. In the middle of
the old man’s account of his acquaintance with Sviazhsky, the gates
creaked again, and laborers came into the yard from the fields, with
wooden ploughs and harrows. The horses harnessed to the ploughs
and harrows were sleek and fat. The laborers were obviously of the
household: two were young men in cotton shirts and caps, the two
others were hired laborers in homespun shirts, one an old man, the
other a young fellow. Moving off from the steps, the old man went up
to the horses and began unharnessing them.
“What have they been ploughing?” asked Levin.
“Ploughing up the potatoes. We rent a bit of land too. Fedot, don’t
let out the gelding, but take it to the trough, and we’ll put the other in
harness.”
“Oh, father, the ploughshares I ordered, has he brought them
along?” asked the big, healthy-looking fellow, obviously the old man’s
son.
“There...in the outer room,” answered the old man, bundling to-
gether the harness he had taken off, and flinging it on the ground.
“You can put them on, while they have dinner.”
The good-looking young woman came into the outer room with the