When he reached home in the evening, he summoned his overseer, and explained to him his plans. The overseer received with undisguised satisfaction all the details of this scheme as far as they showed that all that had been done hitherto was absurd and unproductive. The overseer declared that he had long ago told him so, but that no one would listen to him. But when it came to Levin's proposition to share the profits of the estate with the laborers, on the basis of an association, the overseer put on an expression of the deepest melancholy, and immediately began to speak of the necessity of bringing in the last sheaves of wheat, and commencing the second plowing; and Levin felt that now was not a propitious time.
On conversing with the muzhiks about his project of dividing with them the products of the earth, he found that here his chief difficulty lay in the fact that they were too much occupied with their daily tasks to comprehend the advantages and disadvantages of his enterprise.
A simple-minded muzhik, Ivan the herdsman, seemed to comprehend and to approve Levin's proposal to share with him in the profits of the cattle; but whenever Levin went on to speak of the advantages that would result, Ivan's face grew troubled, and, without waiting to hear Levin out, he would hurry off to attend to some work that could not be postponed,—either to pitch the hay from the pens, or to draw water, or to clear away the manure.
Another obstacle consisted in the inveterate distrust of the peasants, who would not believe that a proprietor could have any other aim than to get all he could out of them. They were firmly convinced, in spite of all he could say, that his real purpose was hidden. They, on their side, in expressing their opinions had much to say; but they carefully guarded against telling what their actual object was.
Levin came to the conclusion that the irate proprietor was right in saying that the peasants demanded, as the first and indispensable condition for any arrangement,
