"Don't you be troubled; we will do all in good time."
Levin angrily waved his hand, and went to examine his oats in the granary; then he went to the stables. The grain was not yet spoiled, but the workmen were stirring it up with shovels when they might have let it down from one story to the other. After he had straightened this matter and sent two hands to sow the clover, Levin calmed down in regard to his overseer. It was such a lovely day that one could not keep angry.
"Ignat," he cried to his coachman, who, with upturned sleeves, was washing the carriage near the pump, "saddle me a horse,"
"Which one?"
"Well, Kolpik."
"I will do so."
While he was saddling the horse, Levin again called the overseer, who was busying himself in his vicinity, hoping to be restored to favor, and began to speak with him about the work that he wanted done during the spring, and about his plans for carrying on the estate.
He wanted the compost spread as soon as possible, so as to have this work done before the first mowing; then he wanted the farthest field plowed, so that it might be left fallow. All the fields—not half of them—should be attended to with the laborers.
The overseer listened attentively, doing his best evidently to approve of his master's plans. But nevertheless his face wore that vexatiously hopeless and melancholy expression which Levin knew so well. This expression seemed to say, "This is all very well and good, but as God shall give."
Nothing exasperated Levin so much as this tone, but it was common to all the overseers that had ever been in his service. They all received his projects with the same dejected air; and so he now refrained from getting angry, but he was exasperated and felt himself still more stimulated for the struggle against this, as it were elemental, force which he could not help calling " As God
