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the same great difficulty that they were so much absorbed by the
current work of the day, that they had not time to consider the advan-
tages and disadvantages of the proposed scheme.
The simple-hearted Ivan, the cowherd, seemed completely to grasp
Levin’s proposal—that he should with his family take a share of the
profits of the cattle-yard—and he was in complete sympathy with the
plan. But when Levin hinted at the future advantages, Ivan’s face
expressed alarm and regret that he could not hear all he had to say, and
he made haste to find himself some task that would admit of no delay:
he either snatched up the fork to pitch the hay out of the pens, or ran
to get water or to clear out the dung.
Another difficulty lay in the invincible disbelief of the peasant that
a landowner’s object could be anything else than a desire to squeeze all
he could out of them. They were firmly convinced that his real aim
(whatever he might say to them) would always be in what he did not
say to them. And they themselves, in giving their opinion, said a great
deal but never said what was their real object. Moreover (Levin felt
that the irascible landowner had been right) the peasants made their
first and unalterable condition of any agreement whatever that they
should not be forced to any new methods of tillage of any kind, nor to
use new implements. They agreed that the modern plough ploughed
better, that the scarifier did the work more quickly, but they found
thousands of reasons that made it out of the question for them to use
either of them; and though he had accepted the conviction that he
would have to lower the standard of cultivation, he felt sorry to give up
improved methods, the advantages of which were so obvious. But in
spite of all these difficulties he got his way, and by autumn the system
was working, or at least so it seemed to him.
At first Levin had thought of giving up the whole farming of the
land just as it was to the peasants, the laborers, and the bailiff on new
conditions of partnership; but he was very soon convinced that this
was impossible, and determined to divide it up. The cattle-yard, the
garden, hay fields, and arable land, divided into several parts, had to be
made into separate lots. The simple-hearted cowherd, Ivan, who, Levin
fancied, understood the matter better than any of them, collecting
together a gang of workers to help him, principally of his own family,
became a partner in the cattle-yard. A distant part of the estate, a tract
of waste land that had lain fallow for eight years, was with the help of
the clever carpenter, Fyodor Ryezunov, taken by six families of peas-
ants on new conditions of partnership, and the peasant Shuraev took
the management of all the vegetable gardens on the same terms. The
remainder of the land was still worked on the old system, but these
three associated partnerships were the first step to a new organization
of the whole, and they completely took up Levin’s time.
It is true that in the cattle-yard things went no better than before,
and Ivan strenuously opposed warm housing for the cows and butter
made of fresh cream, affirming that cows require less food if kept cold,
and that butter is more profitable made from sour cream, and he asked
for wages just as under the old system, and took not the slightest
interest in the fact that the money he received was not wages but an
advance out of his future share in the profits.
It is true that Fyodor Ryezunov’s company did not plough over the
ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying themselves
on the plea that the time was too short. It is true that the peasants of
the same company, though they had agreed to work the land on new
conditions, always spoke of the land, not as held in partnership, but as
rented for half the crop, and more than once the peasants and Ryezunov
himself said to Levin, “If you would take a rent for the land, it would