Page:Anna Karenina.djvu/343

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ANNA KARENINA
15

every side, but he felt also that his brother had not understood what he wished to say. He did not know exactly whether it was because he did not know how to express himself clearly, or because his brother did not wish to understand him, or whether he could not understand him. He did not try to fathom this question; but, without replying to his brother, he became absorbed in entirely different thoughts, connected with his own work. Sergyeï Ivanovitch reeled in his last line, he unhitched the horse, and they drove away.


CHAPTER IV

The thought that was absorbing Levin at the time of his discussion with his brother was this: the year before, having come one day to the hay-field. Levin had fallen into a passion with his overseer. He had employed his favorite means of calming himself—had taken the scythe from a muzhik and begun to mow.

He enjoyed the work so much that he had tried it again and again. He had mowed the whole of the lawn in front of his house, and this year early in the spring he had formulated a plan of spending whole days mowing with the muzhiks.

Since his brother's arrival he had been in doubt: Should he mow or not? He had scruples about leaving his brother alone for whole days at a time, and he was afraid that his brother would make sport of him on account of this. But as they crossed the meadow, and he recalled the impression that the mowing had made on him, he had almost made up his mind that he would mow. Now after his vexatious discussion with his brother, he again remembered his project.

"I must have some physical exercise, or my character will absolutely spoil," he thought, and made up his mind to mow, no matter what his brother or his servants should say.

That very evening Konstantin Levin went to the office, gave some directions about the work to be done, and