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“Don’t put yourself out; we shall get it all done in time.”
Levin waved his hand angrily, went into the granary to glance at
the oats, and then to the stable. The oats were not yet spoiled. But the
peasants were carrying the oats in spaces when they might simply let
the slide down into the lower granary; and arranging for this to be
done, and taking two workmen from there for sowing clover, Levin got
over his vexation with the bailiff. Indeed, it was such a lovely day that
one could not be angry.
“Ignat!” he called to the coachman, who, with his sleeves tucked up,
was washing the carriage wheels, “saddle me...”
“Which, sir?”
“Well, let it be Kolpik.”
“Yes, sir.”
While they were saddling his horse, Levin again called up the
bailiff, who was handing about in sight, to make it up with him, and
began talking to him about the spring operations before them, and his
plans for the farm.
The wagons were to begin carting manure earlier, so as to get all
done before the early mowing. And the ploughing of the further land
to go on without a break so as to let it ripen lying fallow. And the
mowing to be all done by hired labor, not on half-profits. The bailiff
listened attentively, and obviously made an effort to approve of his
employer’s projects. But still he had that look Levin knew so well that
always irritated him, a look of hopelessness and despondency. That
look said: “That’s all very well, but as God wills.”
Nothing mortified Levin so much as that tone. But it was the tone
common to all the bailiffs he had ever had. They had all taken up that
attitude to his plans, and so now he was not angered by it, but morti-
fied, and felt all the more roused to struggle against this, as it seemed,
elemental force continually ranged against him, for which he could find
no other expression than “as God wills.”
“If we can manage it, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” said the bailiff.
“Why ever shouldn’t you manage it?”
“We positively must have another fifteen laborers. And they don’t
turn up. There were some here today asking seventy roubles for the
summer.”
Levin was silent. Again he was brought face to face with that
opposing force. He knew that however much they tried, they could not
hire more than forty—thirty-seven perhaps or thirty-eight— laborers
for a reasonable sum. Some forty had been taken on, and there were no
more. But still he could not help struggling against it.
“Send to Sury, to Tchefirovka; if they don’t come we must look for
them.”
“Oh, I’ll send, to be sure,” said Vassily Fedorovitch despondently.
“But there are the horses, too, they’re not good for much.”
“We’ll get some more. I know, of course,” Levin added laughing,
“you always want to do with as little and as poor quality as possible;
but this year I’m not going to let you have things your own way. I’ll see
to everything myself.”
“Why, I don’t think you take much rest as it is. It cheers us up to
work under the master’s eye...”
“So they’re sowing clover behind the Birch Dale? I’ll go and have a
look at them,” he said, getting on to the little bay cob, Kolpik, who was
let up by the coachman.
“You can’t get across the streams, Konstantin Dmitrievitch,” the
coachman shouted.
“All right, I’ll go by the forest.”
And Levin rode through the slush of the farmyard to the gate and