第67章

Absorbed in such dreams, carefully keeping his horse by the hedges so as not to trample his young winter fields, he rode up to the laborers who had been sent to sow clover. A telega with the seed in it was standing, not at the edge, but in the middle of the tillage, and the winter corn had been torn up by the wheels and trampled by the horse. Both the laborers were sitting in the hedge, probably smoking a pipe, turn and turn about.

The earth in the telega, with which the seed was mixed, was not crushed to powder, but crusted together or adhering in clods. Seeing the master, the laborer, Vassilii, went toward the telega, while Mishka set to work sowing. This was not as it should be, but with the laborers Levin seldom lost his temper. When Vassilii came up, Levin told him to lead the horse to the hedge.

`Never mind, sir, it'll spring up again,' responded Vassilii.

`Please don't argue,' said Levin, `but do as you're told.'

`Yes, sir,' answered Vassilii, and he took the horse's head. `What a sowing, Konstantin Dmitrich!' he said ingratiatingly. `First-rate. Only it's a work to get about! A fellow drags thirty pounds of earth at every step.'

`Why is it you have earth that's not sifted?' said Levin.

`Well, we crumble it up,' answered Vassilii, taking up some seed and rolling the earth in his palms.

Vassilii was not to blame for their having fired up his telega with unsifted earth, but still it was annoying.

Levin had already, more than once, tried a way he knew for stifling his anger, and turning all that seemed dark right again, and he tried that way now. He watched how Mishka strode along, swinging the huge clods of earth that clung to each foot; and, getting off his horse, he took the sieve from Vassilii and started sowing himself.

`Where did you stop?'

Vassilii pointed to the mark with his foot, and Levin went forward as best he could, scattering the seed on the land. Walking was as difficult as on a bog, and by the time Levin had ended the row he was in a great heat, and, stopping, gave the sieve over to Vassilii.

`Well master, when summer's here, mind you don't scold me for this row,' said Vassilii.

`Eh?' said Levin cheerily, already feeling the effect of his method.

`Why, you'll see in the summertime. It'll look different. Look you where I sowed last spring. How I did work at it I do my best, Konstantin Dmitrich, d'ye see, as I would for my own father. I don't like botchwork myself, nor would I let another man do it. What's good for the master is good for us too. It does one's heart good,' said Vassilii, pointing, `to look over yonder.'

`It's a lovely spring, Vassilii.'

`Why, it's a spring such as even the old men don't remember the like of. I was up home; my father there has sown wheat too, three osminas of it. He was saying you couldn't tell it from rye.'

`Have you been sowing wheat long?'

`Why, sir, it was you taught us, the year before last. You gave me two measures. We sold about one chetvert and sowed three osminas.'

`Well, mind you crumble up the clods,' said Levin, going toward his horse, `and keep an eye on Mishka. And if there's a good crop you shall have half a rouble for every dessiatina.'

`Thank you, kindly. We are very well content, sir, with your treatment, as it is.'

Levin got on his horse and rode toward the field where last year's clover was, and the one which was plowed ready for the spring corn.

The crop of clover coming up in the stubble was magnificent. It had revived already, and stood up vividly green through the broken stalks of last year's wheat. The horse sank in up to the pasterns, and he drew each hoof with a sucking sound out of the half-thawed ground. Over the plowland the riding was utterly impossible; the horse could only keep a foothold where there was ice, and in the thawing furrows he sank in deep at each step. The plowland was in splendid condition; in a couple of days it would be fit for harrowing and sowing. Everything was capital, everything was cheering. Levin rode back across the streams, hoping the water would have gone down. And he did in fact get across, and startled two ducks.

`There must be woodcock here too,' he thought, and just as he reached the turning homewards he met the forest keeper, who confirmed his theory about the woodcock.

Levin went home at a trot, so as to have time to eat his dinner and get his gun ready for the evening.

[Next Chapter] [Table of Contents]TOLSTOY: Anna Karenina Part 2, Chapter 14[Previous Chapter] [Table of Contents] Chapter 14 As he rode up to the house in the happiest frame of mind, Levin heard the bell ring at the side of the principal entrance of the house.

`Yes, that's someone from the railway station,' he thought, `just the time to be here from the Moscow train.... Who could it be? What if it's brother Nikolai? He did say: ``I may go to the waters, or I may come down to you.'' He felt dismayed and vexed for the first minute that his brother Nikolai's presence should come to his happy mood of spring. But he felt ashamed of the feeling, and at once he opened, as it were, the arms of his soul, and with a softened feeling of joy and expectation, he now hoped with all his heart that it was his brother. He spurred on his horse, and as he rode out from behind the acacias, he saw a hired troika from the railway station, and a gentleman in a fur coat. It was not his brother. `Oh, if it were only some pleasant person one could talk to a little!' he thought.

`Ah,' cried Levin joyfully, flinging up both his hands. `Here's a delightful visitor! Ah, how glad I am to see you!' he shouted, recognizing Stepan Arkadyevich.

`I shall find out for certain whether she's married, or when she's going to be married,' he thought.

And on that delicious spring day he felt that the thought of her did not hurt him at all.