Anna Karenina (Dole)/Part Three/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
After breakfast, Levin took his place in the line not where he had been before, but between the quizzical old man, who asked him to be his neighbor, and a young muzhik who had been married only since autumn and was now mowing for the first time.
The old man, standing very erect, mowed straight on, with long, regular strides; and the swinging of the scythe seemed no more like labor than the swinging of his arms when walking. His well-whetted scythe cut, as it were, of its own energy through the succulent grass.
Behind Levin came the young Mishka. His pleasant, youthful face, under a wreath of green grass which bound his hair, worked with the energy that employed the rest of his body. But when any one looked at him, he would smile. He would rather die than confess that he found the labor hard.
Levin went between the two.
The labor seemed lighter to him during the heat of the day. The sweat in which he was bathed refreshed him; and the sun, burning his back, his head, and his arms bared to the elbow, gave him force and tenacity for his work. More and more frequently the moments of oblivion, of unconsciousness of what he was doing, came back to him; the scythe went of itself. Those were happy moments. Then, still more gladsome were the moments when, coming to the river where the wind-rows ended, the old man, wiping his scythe with the moist, thick grass, rinsed the steel in the river, then, dipping up a ladleful of the cool water, gave it to Levin.
"This is my kvas! It's good, is n't it?" he exclaimed, winking.
And, indeed, it seemed to Levin that he had never tasted any liquor more refreshing than this lukewarm water, in which grass floated, and tasting of the rusty tin cup. Then came the glorious slow promenade, when, with scythe on the arm, there was time to wipe the heated brow, fill the lungs full, and glance round at the long line of haymakers, and the busy work that had been accomplished in field and forest.
The longer Levin mowed, the more frequently he felt the moments of oblivion, when his hands did not wield the scythe, but the scythe seemed to have a self-conscious body, full of life, and carrying on, as it were by enchantment, a regular and systematic work. These were indeed joyful moments.
It was hard only when he was obliged to interrupt this unconscious activity to think about something, when he had to remove a clod or a clump of wild sorrel. The old man did this easily. When he came to a clod, he changed his motion and now with his heel, now with the end of the scythe, pushed it aside with repeated taps. And while doing this he noticed everything and examined everything that was to be seen. Now he picked a strawberry, and ate it himself or gave it to Levin; now snipped off a twig with the end of the scythe; now he discovered a nest of quail from which the mother was scurrying away, or impaled a snake as if with a spear, and, having shown it to Levin, flung it out of the way.
But for Levin and the young fellow behind him these changes of motion were difficult. When once they got into the swing of work, they could not easily change their movements and at the same time observe what was before them.
Levin did not realize how the time was flying. If he had been asked how long he had been mowing, he would have answered, "Half an hour;" and here it was almost dinner-time.
After they finished one row, the old man drew his attention to some little girls and boys, half concealed by the tall grass, who were coming from all sides, through the tall grass and down the roads, bringing to the haymakers their parcels of bread and rag-stoppered jugs of kvas, which seemed too heavy for their little arms.
"See! here come the midgets,"[1] said he, pointing to them; and, shading his eyes, he looked at the sun.
Twice more they went across the field, and then the old man stopped.
"Well, barin, dinner," said he, in a decided tone.
Then the mowers, walking along the riverside, went back through the windrows to their kaftans, where the children were waiting with the dinners. The muzhiks gathered together; some clustered around the carts, others sat in the shade of a laburnum bush, where the mown grass was heaped up.
Levin sat down near them; he had no wish to leave them.
All constraint in the presence of the barin had disappeared. The muzhiks prepared to take their dinner. Some washed themselves, the children went in swimming in the river, others found places to nap in, or undid their bags of bread and uncorked their jugs of kvas.
The old man crumbed his bread into his cup, mashed it with the shank of his spoon, poured water on from his tin basin, and, cutting off still more bread, he salted the whole plentifully; and, turning to the east, he said his prayer.
"Here now, barin, try my bread-crumbs!"[2] said he, kneeling down before his cup.
Levin found the soaked bread so palatable that he decided not to go home to dinner. He dined with the old man, and talked with him about his domestic affairs, in which he took a lively interest, and in his turn told the old man about such of his plans and projects as would interest him.
He felt far nearer to him than to his brother, and he could not help smiling at the affection which he felt for this simple-hearted man.
When the old man got up from his dinner, offered another prayer, and arranged a pillow of fresh-mown grass; and composed himself for a nap, Levin did the same; and, in spite of the stubborn, sticky flies and insects tickling his heated face and body, he immediately went off to sleep, and did not wake until the sun came out on the other side of the laburnum bush and began to shine in his face. The starik had been long awake, and was sitting up cutting the children's hair.
Levin looked around him, and did not know where he was. Everything seemed so changed. The vast level of the mown meadow with its windrows of already fragrant hay was lighted and glorified in a new fashion by the oblique rays of the afternoon sun. The trimmed bushes down by the river, and the river itself, before invisible but now shining like steel with its windings; and the busy peasantry; and the high wall of grass, where the meadow was not yet mowed; and the young vultures flying high above the bare field,—all this was absolutely new to him.
Levin calculated how much had been mowed, and how much could still be done that day. The work accomplished by the forty-two men was considerable. The whole great meadow, which in the time of serfdom used to take thirty scythes two days, was now almost mowed; only a few corners with short rows were left. But Levin wanted to do as much as possible that day, and he was vexed at the sun which was sinking too early. He felt no fatigue; he only wanted to do more rapid work, and get as much done as was possible.
"Do you think we shall get Mashkin Verkh [3] mowed to-day?" he asked of the old man.
"If God allows; the sun is getting low. Will there be little sips of vodka for the boys?"
At the time of the mid-afternoon luncheon, when the men rested again, and the smokers were lighting their pipes, the elder announced to the "boys":—
"Mow Mashkin Verkh—extra vodka!"
"All right! Come on, Sef! Let's tackle it lively, We'll eat after dark. Come on!" cried several voices; and, even while still munching their bread, they got to work again.
"Well, boys, keep up good hearts!" said Sef, setting off almost on the run.
"Come, come!" cried the old man, hastening after him and easily outstripping him. "I am first. Look out!"
Old and young mowed as if they were racing; and yet, with all their haste, they did not spoil their work, but the windrows lay in neat and regular swaths.
The triangle was finished in five minutes. The last mowers had just finished their line, when the first, throwing their kaftans over their shoulders, started down the road to the Mashkin Verkh.
The sun was just hovering over the tree-tops, when, with rattling cans, they came to the little wooded ravine of Mashkin Verkh.
The grass here was as high as a man's waist, tender, succulent, thick, and variegated with the flower called Ivan-da-Marya.
After a short parley, to decide whether to take it across, or lengthwise, an experienced mower, Prokhor Yermilin, a huge, black-bearded muzhik, went over it first. He took it lengthwise, and came back in his track; and then all followed him, going along the hill above the hollow, and skirting the wood. The sun was setting. The light was going behind the forest. The dew was already falling. Only the mowers on the ridge were in the sun; but down in the hollow, where the mist was beginning to rise, and behind the slope, they went in fresh, dewy shade.
The work went on. The grass, cut off with a juicy sound, and falling evenly, lay in high windrows. The mowers came close together from all sides as the rows converged, rattling their drinking-cups, sometimes hitting their scythes together, working with joyful shouts, rallying one another.
Levin still kept his place between the short young man and the elder. The elder, with his sheepskin jacket loosened, was as gay, jocose, free in his movements as ever.
They kept finding birch-mushrooms in the woods, lurking in the juicy grass and cut off by the scythes. But the elder bent down whenever he saw one, and, picking it, put it in his breast.
"Still another little present for my old woman," he would say.
Easy as it was to mow the tender and soft grass, it was hard to climb and descend the steep sides of the ravine. But the elder did not let this appear. Always lightly swinging his scythe, he climbed with short, firm steps, and his feet shod in huge lapti, or bast shoes, though he trembled with his whole body, and his drawers were slipping down below his shirt, he let nothing escape him, not an herb or a mushroom; and he never ceased to joke with Levin and the muzhiks.
Levin went behind him, and more than once felt that he would surely drop, trying to climb, scythe in hand, this steep hillside, where even unencumbered it would be hard to go. But he persevered all the same, and did what was required. He felt as if some interior force sustained him.